For the present, then, we will move on along Frodsham Street, anciently called Cowlane, pausing midway to reflect that in the Quakers’ Meeting-house, at the corner of Union Walk, Friend William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, held forth to his admirers, King James II. being on one occasion an attentive hearer. Continuing on our course a short distance, we emerge from Cowlane into a wide but irregular street, named indifferently Forest or Foregate Street, the latter, from its standing immediately before the gate,—the Eastgate, close by, being always esteemed the porta principalis of the city. Foregate Street forms a part of the old Watling Street of the Romans; so that it existed as a road almost as early as the crucifixion of Our Lord! Fifty years ago this was as curious a street as any within the city; but the ancient piazzas which once ran continuously along it, are now becoming mere specks in the landscape, and “like angels’ visits, few and far between.” Not far from where we are standing, near the corner of St. John’s Street, are two superior travellers’ inns, the Hoppole, and the Blossoms, the latter a house of the highest standing and respectability, admirably adapted for the accommodation of visitors, and for all those who would enjoy the comfort of a home combined with the advantages of a first-class Hotel. At the rear of the Blossoms, in St. John Street, is the Post Office, a neat stuccoed building, erected in 1842, at the sole expense of William Palin, Esq., the present post-master. Prior to this, the business of the Post-Office was conducted in a dark and dreary building, situate up a court, still known as the Old Post-Office Yard. It was to Rowland Hill, and his wonder-working penny stamp, that the citizens owed this satisfactory change from darkness unto light.
Yonder white stone building at the head of St. John Street is the well-known banking establishment of Messrs. Williams & Co., usually denominated the Old Bank. And, here, crossing the street at an altitude of some thirty feet, is the Eastgate, a noble arch, with a postern on either side, erected in 1769, on the site of a Gateway, dating back to the days of the Third Edward, by Robert, first Marquis of Westminster, whose arms, with those of the city, ornament the keystone of the centre arch.
Handsome and commodious as is the present Eastgate,—on every score but that of convenience, it is immeasurably inferior to its predecessor. Could we but look upon the structure as it existed only a hundred years ago, with its beautiful Gothic archway, flanked by two massive octagonal towers, four stories in height, supporting the Gate itself and the rooms above,—could we but resuscitate the time-worn embattlements of that “ancient of days,” we should wonder at and pity the spurious taste that decreed its fall. “Oh, but,” we may be told, “the present Gate was a public improvement.” A plague upon such improvements, say we! We should vastly have preferred, and so would every lover of the antique, whether citizen or stranger, to have retained the old Gate in its integrity, altered, had need been, to meet the growing wants of the times, rather than have thus consigned it to the ruthless hands of the destroyer. Oh! ye spirits of the valiant dead,—you who lost your lives defending this Gate against the cannons of Cromwell, why did ye not rise up from your graves, and arrest the mad course of that “age of improvement!” When this Gate was being demolished, the massive arches of the original Roman structure were laid bare to the view, and a portion of one of them is yet to be seen on the north-west side of the present Gateway.
At this point we will turn away from the street, and, ascending the steps on the north-east side, will amuse ourselves in the next chapter with a quiet Walk Round the Walls of Chester.
CHAPTER III.
The Walls of Chester, their builders and their history.—The Cathedral.—The Phœnix Tower, and the Walls during the Siege.—Beeston Castle.—The North Gate.—Training College.—Morgan’s Mount and Pemberton’s Parlour.—The Water Tower.—Infirmary and Gaol.—Linen Hall.—The Watergate.
A walk round the Walls of Chester! Now, then, for a choice tête-à-tête with the past! Away with the commonplace nineteenth century! Away with the mammon-loving world of to-day! The path we are now treading, high above the busy haunts of men, has a traditionary halo and interest peculiarly its own.
With the rapidity of thought, our imagination wanders some eighteen hundred years backwards on the stream of time, to the days when Marius, King of the Britons, to defend his royal city from the incursions of his enemies, built up a fortified wall around Chester. The Britons, however, were no masons; and their rude defences availed them little when opposed to the resistless career of Rome. Surrendered to its new masters, the Romans, Chester speedily gave unmistakeable evidence of the change. The mud-walls, or earthworks of the conquered, vanished before the imperial masonry of the conquerors; and the Walls of Chester, built as only Roman hands could build them, rose majestically in their place, clasping the city in an embrace of stone, defiant alike of time and of the foe.
Chester Walls, which afford a continuous promenade, nearly two miles in circumference, are the only perfect specimen of that order of ancient fortification now remaining in Britain. The Walls of Shrewsbury, York, and other places that occur to us, though interesting enough in their way, yet “hide their diminished heads” beside the proud old ramparts of Chester. Where is the pen or the pencil that can depict the scenes of glory and renown, so inseparably bound up with the history of these Walls? For three or four centuries the Roman soldier kept watch and ward over them, and over the city; but no sooner had their legions withdrawn from Britain, than the whole island was shaken to its centre by the ruthless invasion of the Picts and Goths. Deserted by their old protectors, the Britons invoked the aid of the Saxons, under Hengist and Horsa; who, landing at the head of a powerful army, in concert with the Britons, soon drove the invaders from their quarters within the Walls of Chester.