Memorials of old Cheshire

by Unknown

[4] From Hanshall’s Cheshire.

In the Civil Wars the castle was occasionally occupied by both parties, and in August 1644 the Parliamentary forces were in possession. Subsequently it became a prison for debtors for the honour of Halton. But though no account has come down to us of the castle having ever sustained a siege, it has interest for us from its connection with royalty. “Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” was Baron of Halton, and when his son, Henry Bolingbroke, became King, the barony passed to the Crown. The King has the title of Baron of Halton as well as that of Duke of Lancaster. Three halmote courts were held here yearly, and one is still held annually of which an account is given in another paper in this volume. There are now few remains of the ancient buildings. The Survey in Cromwell’s time describes them as being very ruinous. The gate-house has been altered or rebuilt and is now the Castle Inn, and is a picturesque building, and contains a room where the courts for the honour are held. The honour had jurisdiction over thirty-seven townships in Cheshire and over several in Lancashire. The records of this court are preserved, and give interesting information, whilst a paper read in 1858 by the late Mr. William Beamont of Warrington before the Chester Archæological Society contained many particulars as to the castle and its owners and its history.

Beeston Castle.

Beeston Castle affords a most striking object to the traveller as he journeys from Chester to Crewe. It stands on a rocky insulated hill, rising in a regular and steep slope which terminates in a precipice. It was built by Ralph Blundeville, sixth Earl of Chester, “after he was come from the Holie Land,” and is of irregular form, with a wall and eight round towers after the style introduced by the Crusaders. The upper ward occupies something less than an acre. The outer court includes a considerable space of ground, and is of an irregular shape, with several round towers. The keep is surrounded with a deep ditch, cut in the solid rock. The entrance was defended by two circular towers, still remaining, and the moat was crossed by a drawbridge. The approach under the gateway is very narrow, by rugged steps cut out of the natural rock. In the inner court is the draw-well, perfect, but now quite dry. It was emptied by directions of the late Lord Tollemache, and found to be 366 feet in depth. It contained nothing but rubbish, although stories were current of valuable treasures which had in bygone times been hidden there. The position of the castle is remarkable, and very similar to that of Edinburgh Castle, though the plateau there is much more extensive. The precipitous rocks on three sides seem to render it impregnable, but these cliffs were climbed by Captain Sandford, a devoted Royalist, with eight of his firelocks, on December 13, 1643. The castle bore its part in the Barons’ War. In 1237 Henry III., before possessing himself of the Earldom of Chester on the death of John Scot, the last of the local Earls, seized on the castle, together with that of Chester, and placed it in the hands of Commissioners. In 1256 Prince Edward inspected the fortress, and put it and the Castles of Chester, Dissard, Schotewyke, and Vaenor in the charge of Fulco de Orreby, Justice of Chester. In 1264 the partisans of Simon de Montfort took possession of it, but in the following year it was recovered for the royal Earl. In 1399 King Richard III., just before he was dethroned, made it the repository of his treasure, which was subsequently transferred to Chester; but on Bolingbroke’s advance it was abandoned by him. In 1406 the castle was given to the Duke of York. Eighty years later Leland describes the fortress as being in a state of ruin, and so it remained until the Civil Wars, when it was put in a state of defence by a party of three hundred Roundheads in February 1642. From this time, until it was dismantled after the siege of Chester, it had many vicissitudes, falling into the hands of one party or the other, as is set forth in another paper in this volume. A contemporary writer gives the following description of its final surrender to the Parliamentarians on 16th November 1645: “After having sustained a siege of eighteen weeks, the garrison of fifty-six soldiers was driven to the greatest extremity, and had to surrender. Neither meat nor drink was found in the castle, but only a piece of turkey pie, and a live peacock and peahen.” Sir William Brereton magnanimously made a treaty with the brave Royalist Governor of the castle, “that he and his men should be allowed to march from the castle with their arms, colours flying and drums beating, with two cartloads of goods, and be conducted with a convoy to guard them to Flint Castle. Twenty of the soldiers laid down their arms and craved liberty to go to their own homes, which was granted.” Such an incident as this must awaken many memories as we gaze upon this ancient fortress. Now it rises up on its rocky promontory out of a fertile and grassy plain, presenting in its ruined walls a striking contrast to the scene below. A recent writer has said of it: “Excepting Warwick Castle there is perhaps no more interesting relic of feudal power in England than we behold in this famous and far-seen ruin.”

Old Gateway, Chester Castle.
(Now pulled down.)

We come last of all to the Castle of Chester. It is almost certain that the site occupied by it was outside the walls of the original Roman city, and may have been included in them either by later Roman builders, or when the city was repaired, enlarged, and beautified by that great builder, Ethelfleda, the daughter of King Alfred, in 907. At any rate the erection of the first Castle of Chester may safely be attributed to her. Though no trace of the work exists in Saxon masonry, it is fairly certain that the inner or upper bailey stands upon the earthworks thrown up by her, whilst the line of ditch that belonged to the mound on which the flag-tower stood may still be discerned. In 1894 the late Mr. E. W. Cox was permitted by the commanding officer to make a minute examination of the modern buildings on the west side of the court. He satisfied himself that the lower storey of the flag-tower still existed enclosed within modern work, and that this was indeed the base of the Norman keep. This is the only evidence of Norman masonry having been erected on the site, and Mr. Cox formed the opinion that any other work of that period may have been of timber, often used by those early builders, as proved at Montgomery, Shrewsbury, Deganwy, and other places. We come now to the mediæval work, of which we have a portion preserved to us in the Julian Tower, beside the walls on the south and west. This tower is of three storeys, each room being vaulted in stone, the centre one having been the chapel. This is about 16 feet high, and the groins spring from slender pillars with capitals in the style of the thirteenth century. James II. heard Mass in this chapel on 27th August 1687. The building has for some time been used for storage. Some years ago traces of sacred paintings were found on the walls, but they have now entirely disappeared. A plan and sketch of the castle, made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, is in the British Museum. This gives us in the lower court the noble hall called Hugh Lupus’ Hall, which was taken down about the year 1790. It was 90 feet long by 45 in breadth, and the roof was supported by woodwork carved in a bold style and resting on brackets. Adjoining this was the Exchequer, said to have been the Parliament House of the Earls of Chester. All these and the other buildings were swept away, and their place taken by the Assize Courts and County Buildings in the Grecian style of architecture. On either side of the square are now the quarters for the soldiers, a depôt of the Cheshire Regiment being quartered here. The County Prison, erected at the same time on the ground below between the castle and the river, has been removed. Although the remains of the old castle are so slight, we are able from early drawings and prints to gather what it was like, and can thus form some idea of the loss, from a picturesque point of view at any rate, which the city sustained when it was deemed necessary to erect the present buildings.

But although the ancient buildings have gone, we may still call to mind some of the many historic scenes which have been enacted on the spot. We may picture to ourselves the warrior princess Ethelfleda, Alfred’s daughter, resolved that Waste Chester should be a waste Chester no longer, raising up from the old ruinous heaps new fortifications, and enclosing within them a wider area, and erecting here within the re-arranged walls the earliest fort or castle. We can recall the stirring times of the Norman Earls, when the castle, much strengthened from the simple fort of Ethelfleda’s time, was a valuable bulwark and rallying-point, especially in the frequent inroads of the Welsh. Here, too, Henry II. must have spent some time, when he was putting the Flintshire castles in order, before he set sail for Ireland from Shotwick. King John was in Chester, and presumably at the castle, in 1212, and left the city “an outlaw to all Christendom,” to fight his rebellious barons. Chester and its castle played a prominent part in the stirring times that followed, and could tell of visits paid by Henry III. and Simon Montfort and others. Henry took over the earldom, the succession of the Norman earls having failed, which ever since has been a royal appanage. Edward I., first as Prince and afterwards as King, was here again and again; and with his Queen Eleanor attended a service of thanksgiving for his subjugation of Wales on May 26, 1293. In 1301 the castle was the scene of a grand ceremony, when the formal homage of the freeholders of Wales was paid to Prince Edward of Carnarvon, who was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester at the famous Parliament of Lincoln. Richard II. was here in 1394 on his way to Ireland, and again in 1396 when he granted Charter 22, and in the following year was a prisoner, and was lodged in the donjon in the tower over the great outer gateway of the castle opposite Gloverstone, before he signed his abdication. It would, however, be impossible in the space at our disposal to give a list, much less an account, of all the royal visits paid to this historic place, or a description of the notable events which have transpired here. The castle opened its gates to receive both Henry VI. and Henry VII. and their Queens; whilst of the Stuarts, James I., Charles I., and James II. in their turn came to the place, and some of these visits were historical. Our late Queen, whose statue, erected as a memorial of her Jubilee, adorns the Castle Square, passed its entrance in October 1832, when she accompanied her mother the Duchess of Kent, and as Princess Victoria opened the new Grosvenor Bridge over the Dee.

Then, the Shire Hall, within the castle enclosure, was the place where the Parliament of the Principality met, and we can imagine the proceedings which went on there, when the affairs of the county were discussed and managed. For we must remember that it was only in the reign of Henry VIII., in 1543, that the county received summons to send two knights and the city two citizens to Parliament. Until that time the county was an independent jurisdiction. His predecessor, Henry VII., had separated the City from the county, under the title of “The County and City of Chester,” so that the city is a county in itself. Curiously enough, the castle is not in the city but in the county; and some amusement might be caused by a statement of the difficulties which have sometimes arisen through conflicting police jurisdiction. Chester Castle, then, though but little is left of its ancient buildings, may awaken memories in the minds of the men of Cheshire and of England generally. They may acknowledge that it has witnessed many stirring scenes, and that it has taken its share in the defence of our country, and in that long line of memorable events which have made England what she is, and her children proud of bearing the name of Englishmen.