'King Charles
stood on this tower
September 27th, 1645, and saw
His Army defeated
on Rowton Moor.'
Rowton Moor is no longer moorland. A village now stands on the battlefield where the last hopes of the loyal inhabitants of Chester were destroyed. The defeated army consisted of the remnants of the Royalist cavalry under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, who was trying to cut his way through the enemy to reinforce the garrison of Chester. The Royalists were almost successful, and a sortie was made by the troops within the city to join hands with Langdale, but the Puritan General Poyntz, following closely on the heels of the Royalist horse, threw them into hopeless confusion and drove them helter-skelter in all directions. During the battle Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, whose tomb is in the Shakerley Chapel at Little Peover, carried dispatches to the king, ferrying himself across the river Dee in a tub. Some matchlocks and firelocks used in this battle have been found on the Heath, and are now in the Chester Museum.
This defeat was almost the final blow received by the king in his struggle with Parliament. On the following day Charles fled into Wales by an undefended road, asking only that the city might hold out for eight days longer to enable him to make good his escape. In a tiny window in Farndon Church are some pieces of ancient painted glass, with portraits of several of the Cheshire esquires who attended Charles during his stay in Chester.
The cordon was now drawn tighter round the doomed city, and a regular blockade followed to starve the citizens into surrender. When the Cromwellian troops who had been battering Lathom House in Lancashire arrived and took up a position on the north side of the walls, the city was completely surrounded. Dodleston Hall, to the south-west of the city, was occupied by Brereton to prevent any further escapes into Wales. The Roundheads made a floating bridge across the river Dee, which was, however, destroyed by fireships which were turned adrift and were carried up the river by a strong spring tide. Scaling-ladders were fixed on the walls, but the Royalists dragged them up into the city in the night-time.
The inhabitants were determined not to give in without a struggle. Even women took a share in the work of defence, carrying baskets of earth to fill up the breaches made by a night attack upon the city walls. The city was well protected by the river Dee on its western and southern sides; a semicircle of mud earthworks was made round the north and east of the city. Many large houses in the neighbourhood were burnt by the Royalists to prevent their being used by the enemy. The suburb of Boughton, with its hall, was entirely destroyed, fighting taking place almost daily in this quarter. The Royalists also made breaches in the Dee Bridge.
When the outworks were carried by the Parliamentarian troops, all S. John's parish lay at their mercy. The Roundheads turned the church into a fortress, and planted a battery of guns on the tower, from which they battered the city walls. In a glass case at the west end of the church you may see a cannon ball that was fired from the walls and long afterwards found embedded in the church tower.