What is this Elizabethan building we are so rapidly approaching? Surely this has no antediluvian tale to tell—no musty connection with mediæval times? No, truly: here we have a creation of the present age—a noble institution,—one which, from its character and objects, deserves at least some notice at our hands. This is the Diocesan Training College, the same building we saw and admired at a distance, in our “Walk round the Walls.” Erected mainly by public subscription, in 1842, from the designs of Messrs. Buckler, of London—established for the training and qualifying of masters for the Church Schools of the diocese,—presided over by the bishop, and more immediately by the talented principal, the Rev. Arthur Rigg,—this institution “pursues the even tenour of its way,” by annually preparing a number of young men fitted for the duties of parochial schoolmasters—men firmly attached to the Church of their forefathers, and able to impart to those intrusted to them the blessings of a sound, religious, and useful education.
The College has a resident principal and vice-principal, the former, Mr. Rigg, having held his appointment since the first starting of the project. In its infancy, and while the present handsome edifice was in building, the College for awhile “hid its light under a bushel” in some dreary-looking premises in Nicholas Street, but was removed hither in the autumn of 1842. In addition to the ordinary details of scholastic training, the students are instructed in various branches of manual labour; they are taught how “to handle the chisel and the saw, the mattock and the spade.” They have on the premises a blacksmith’s forge,—at which they manufacture all their own implements and tools;—turners’ lathes, steam-engines, lithographic presses, power looms, and a host of other appliances, are at the mercy of the “happy family;” and it is wonderful to see to what proficiency these amateur craftsmen attain,—and all, be it remembered, during their intervals of leisure from more important duties. Subordinate in some measure to this “school for school-masters,” there is also a Lower School, upon the ground floor, for the children of the poor. Here the incipient masters in turn officiate, and gradually learn, under the superintendence of their worthy chief, the practical duties of their responsible profession. Under the same paternal roof exists another school, more private and commercial in its character and aims, under the special eye and control of the principal, for the sons of the higher and middle classes of society. Of this latter arm it is sufficient to say—
And higher praise ’twere hard to give,
Unjust to offer less,—
that it is conducted on the same scale of intelligence and liberality which distinguish the other main branches of the institution.
Some years after the building of the College, a Chapel was erected at the south-east corner, for the use of the students; and a chaste little edifice it is, inside as well as out; worthy—if aught here below, indeed, can be worthy—of the holy purpose for which it was designed,—the glorious worship of the triune God. The internal fittings and decorations, which are many and beautiful, are almost wholly the work of the industrious students; and, while honourable to their taste in design, reflect the highest credit as well upon their hearts as on their hands.
Beyond, and to the right of the College, stands the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum; but, this being without the confines of the City, is, by the same token, beyond our pale.
We have now reached the extent of our wanderings northward, for a narrow brook, a short distance away, determines the limits of the city jurisdiction; so, bidding “a long, a last farewell” to the Chester College, and to the enchanting prospect its site commands, we will return, nothing loth, to the heart of the city, and to those ravishing chops so anxiously awaiting us at our own hotel.
CHAPTER X.
Llwyd, the Welsh Antiquary.—Chester Fair.—Tennis Court and Theatre.—The Justing Croft.—The Bars.—Steam Mills.—Ragged Schools.—Boughton and St. Paul’s Church.—The Spital and George Marsh.—Roman Altar.—St. John Street, and Mechanics’ Institution.—Roman Catholic Convent.—St. John’s Church and Ruins.—Jacob’s Well, and the Anchorite’s Cell.—The Groves and the Dee.
What a strange old place this Chester of ours is! As we retrace our steps under the Northgate and the Walls, we seem as if roaming through a city of the middle ages; so oddly does everything around us arrest our attention, and “excite our passing wonder.” Those overhanging gables, with darksome pathways burrowed out beneath them, and whose builders were subjects of “Good Queen Bess,”—those two rugged Gateways still marking the course of the old Abbey wall,—the crumbling Abbey itself, more venerable still, and incomparably “richer and rarer” to look upon; these, and yon marvellous Rows, which nobody has ever seen, or ever can see, anywhere but in Chester, afford us ample subjects for contemplation until we arrive at the Eastgate.