Chester Wall. Roman below; Edwardian above
Chester, from its position at the very gates of North Wales, was the natural meeting-place for the troops, and the starting-point of Edward's expedition against Llewellyn. Soon after his accession he summoned the Welsh princes to do homage to him. This they refused to do, and the king prepared for war. Llewellyn's brother David for a long time fought on the side of the English, and received the manor of Frodsham as his reward.
Edward's first task, however, was to strengthen the defences of Chester so that it might resist all attacks. The enemy frequently came close up to the walls of the city, and raided especially the suburb of Handbridge on the opposite shore of the Dee, naming it Treboeth or 'Burnt Town', a name that tells its own tale.
Edward was a great castle-builder, as many of you have learnt from pictures you have seen of his Welsh castles. The Norman castle of Chester had been constructed largely of wood. Edward now rebuilt it of stone, and greatly enlarged it by adding an outer ward or 'bailey'. He surrounded the whole fortress with 'curtain' walls flanked with towers and protected with a deep ditch. He also set to work to rebuild the walls of the city.
The ancient Roman walls had long since crumbled to their foundations, though here and there a mass of masonry remained standing, and the Roman east gate was still in its place. The stones of which the walls had been built had provided building-material for many centuries. On the east side from the Pepper Gate to the Phoenix Tower Edward built his wall on or near the foundations of the Roman wall, portions of which you may still see on this side of the city. For the most part, however, the new walls were built outside the older ones, and the area enclosed was much greater than that of the Roman town.
The walls were strengthened by a number of watch towers, some of which were not completed until the time of his grandson Edward the Third, when Bonewaldeston's Tower and the Water Tower were built. A wall-tax called 'murage' was levied on the inhabitants of Cheshire for keeping the walls in repair. The citizens of Chester were also made to build a bridge over the Dee. Edward's chief engineer was named Richard, and in return for his services he received for a number of years the Dee Mills, so that for the time being he was the 'Miller of the Dee'.
Water Tower and Curtain Wall, Chester
After some years of hard fighting the conquest of the Welsh was complete. At Rhuddlan Castle, on the borders of the ancient palatine earldom, Edward gave to the conquered Welsh a settled government and a system of law-courts similar to that which he had already set up for the English. He returned to Chester to celebrate the peace that he had made, and accompanied by his queen, with great pomp and ceremony attended mass and a service of thanksgiving in the Abbey of S. Werburgh.