First a settlement of the Ancient Britons—then a colony of imperial Rome—afterwards a favourite city and frequent resort of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs—now the camp and court of Hugh Lupus the Norman, nephew of the Conqueror—then the key to the subjugation of Wales, and to its union with the English crown—ever a city of loyalty and renown,—no admirer of the curious and remarkable, none who seek after the ancient and honourable, should fail to visit and explore the beauties of “rare old Chester.” The eye of the stranger, be he Englishman or foreigner, European or American, will here find an ample and luxuriant field for admiration: the man of taste, who may linger within its Walls, will not depart ungratified; nor will the antiquary search here in vain for some rich and profitable treasures of investigation: in short, such is the antiquity, the peculiarity of Chester, that the stranger who can pass through without bestowing on it some little share of attention, must have a dull and incurious eye indeed.
Before we proceed to point out to the visitor the numerous objects of interest within the city, we must conform to the fashion prevalent in such matters, and, tedious though it may seem, preface our description with a condensed sketch of the
HISTORY OF CHESTER,
Some historians there are who, dealing largely in the marvellous, have attributed to Chester an existence almost coeval with the Flood. Sir Thomas Elyot, for instance, writing about 1520, gravely asserts that the name of the city was originally Neomagus, and so called from its founder Magus, the grandson of Japhet, the son of Noah, who first planted inhabitants in these islands! Were this statement authenticated, Chester would hold the dignified position of the oldest city in the universe; but, credulous as we undoubtedly are on some points, we confess to a modicum of infidelity upon this. It may have been, and from its commanding position doubtless was, one of the earliest settlements of the aboriginal inhabitants, Ancient Britons or otherwise; but farther than this, no historian, desiring to be accurate, can safely go.
Ranulph Higden, a shorn monk of Chester Abbey, attributes to the city a British foundation, namely, from Lleon Gawr, the vanquisher of the Picts, a giant of mammoth size and stature, who built a city here, chiefly underground, hewn out of the rock, and after a rude and disordered fashion. But let the “barefooted friar” speak for himself, from Wynkyn de Worde’s edition of his Chronicle, published A.D. 1495:—
“The Cyte of Legyons, that is Chestre, in the marches of Englonde, towarde Wales, betwegne two armes of the see, that bee named Dee and Mersee. Thys cyte in tyme of Britons, was hede and chyefe cyte of all Venedocia, that is, North Wales. Thys cyte in Brytyshe speche bete Carthleon, Chestre in Englyshe, and Cyte of Legyons also. For there laye a wynter the legyons that Julius Cezar sent for to wyne Irlonde. And after, Claudius Cezar sent legyons out of the cyte for to wynn the Islands that be called Orcades. Thys cyte hath plente of lyveland, of corn, of fleshe, and specyally of samon. Thys cyte receyveth grate marchandyse, and sendeth out also. Northumbres destroyed thys cyte sometyme, but Elfreda, lady of Mercia, bylded it agayn, and made it mouch more.
“In thys cyte ben ways under erth, with vowtes and stone werke, wonderfully wrought, three chambred werkes, grete stones ingrave with old mannes names there in. Thys is that cyte that Ethelfrede, Kyng of Northumberlonde, destroyed, and sloughe there fast by nygh two thousonde monks of the mynster of Bangor. Thys is the cyte that Kyng Edgar cam to, some tyme, with seven Kyngs that were subject to hym.”
The delectable style of building above described is also thus commented upon in that poetical curiosity, the “Lyfe of St. Werburgh,” by Henry Bradshaw, another monk of Chester Abbey, who flourished in sackcloth and ashes sometime previous to 1500:—
The founder of Chester, as saith Polychronicon,
Was Leon Gauer, a mighty strong giant;
Which builded caves and dungeons many a one,
No goodly buildings, ne proper, ne pleasant.
But King Leil, a Briton sure and valiant,
Was founder of Chester by pleasant building,
And of Caerleil also named by the King.
Among the ancient Britons, the city was known from time immemorial as Caerlleon Vawr, and Caerlleon ar Dyfyrdwy, and was certainly with them a city of great importance, long before the advent of the Roman invaders to these shores. Equally certain is it that our primitive forefathers, unable to stem the onward current of the victorious Romans, fled in disorder from the city of Caerlleon (Chester), to the mountain fastnesses of Wales, and there concentrating themselves, defied for many a long and eventful century alike the wiles and encroachments of their enemies.
Chester, resigned to the tender mercies of the conquerors, rapidly lost its first estate;—rising again, however, under the shade of the imperial eagles, like a phœnix from its ashes, to be the chosen camp and colony of the Twentieth Legion of Cæsar. Stirring times were these for old Chester; the rude huts of the Britons, the temples and altars of the ancient Druids, the mud walls and other defences of her former possessors, all vanished like a dream, while in their place arose the proud Prætorium, the pagan temples, the stately columns, the peerless masonry, the noble statues, the massive Walls, and all the other elements of civilisation which usually followed in the wake of proud old Rome! Perhaps of the many Roman settlements in Britain, none have retained to our own time so many enduring proofs of their energetic rule as Chester. Surrounded by Walls, which for almost their entire length rest upon Roman foundations,—nay, which still exhibit to the naked eye of truth and time the evident impress of their mechanical genius,—we fancy, while we look thereon, that we see the sturdy warriors pacing to and fro, keeping watch against the enemy; while, within the city, the soldiers and inhabitants are plying the pickaxe, trowel, and spade,—here piling stone upon stone in the erection of a forum, and there planning and building the tesselated floors, the baths, and the sudatories of domestic life. Eighteen hundred years have rolled away since Julius Agricola and his Legion held sway over the city, and yet ever since then, notwithstanding that they have long lain in the dust, scarce a year has passed without the encroachments of the builder, or the researches of the antiquary, bringing to light some long hidden, but valuable relic of this extraordinary people. Time and space alike forbid us to give anything like a summary of the records existing, under our very eyes, of Rome’s sojourn within these walls. Other and more antiquated guide-books have long ago exhausted and worn out these topics of interest, as well as the miserable woodcuts that illustrated them; it only remains therefore for us, in the body of our work, to enumerate a few of the more prominent and accessible of these remains.