THE DEE AT CHESTER, FROM THE WALLS (p. [239]).
The river ALYN joins the Dee below Wrexham. It has come through much lovely country, of one portion of which, near Mold, Pennant says:—“I hang long over the charming vale which opens here. Cambria here lays aside her majestic air, and condescends to assume a gentler form, in order to render her less violent in approaching union with her English neighbour.” The Alyn runs underground for about half a mile after it has passed the old fortress of Caergwele. Indeed, as Drayton says, with all due exactness, “twice underground her crystal head doth run.” Our first great landscape painter, Richard Wilson, was buried at Mold, and it was in the vale of the Alyn that fortune at last came to him, for here, on a small estate which had been bequeathed to him, he came upon a vein of lead, and was henceforth able to live in reasonable affluence.
“And following Dee, which Britons long ygone
Did call ‘divine,’ that doth to Chester tend”—
so remarks Edmund Spenser. First, however, we pass Eaton Hall and its splendid grounds. Sir John Vanbrugh built a great mansion on the site, which was pulled down when Gothic architecture again came into fashion. Its successor was, in spite of great cost and elaboration, an architectural failure, and it has now given place to Mr. Waterhouse’s greatest and most colossal achievement in domestic architecture. This magnificent seat of the Duke of Westminster is situated in a very extensive park, in which there is one avenue two miles in length, bordered on each side by forest trees. The style of architecture adopted by Mr. Waterhouse is that which prevailed in France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. “There is not a house in England,” it has been said, “that has been built on a more perfect arrangement.” The Dee flows round the outskirts of the park to the beautiful village of Eccleston, where the grounds, sloping down to the river, are very beautifully ornamented with trees. Henceforward to Chester the stream is like a broad reach of the Thames, calm, massive, with leafy banks, a truly impressive introduction to one of the most famous of English cities.
Chester is remarkable alike for its present and its past. It shares with York the distinction of having kept its ancient walls unimpaired; and the walls of Chester, of a rich red sandstone, are much finer, both in colour and in form, than those of the northern city. The definite history of the place goes back at least as far as Agricola, who was at Chester in the year 60 A.D. as an officer in the army of Suetonius Paulinus. Then it was, probably, that the Romans first established a camp on the banks of the Dee. Chester seems to have been the headquarters of the Twentieth Legion, which, soon after the death of Augustus, was stationed at Cologne, on the Rhine, from the reign of Claudius to the departure of the Romans from Britain. The memorials of this occupation are not now very numerous, but are of the highest value in determining what kind of city Chester was when it was occupied by a legion so distinguished that it was generally placed in posts of difficulty and great honour. Probably the most perfect hypocaust in England is that which is to be seen in the grounds attached to the Water Tower at Chester. Ignorant men who offer themselves as guides still speak of the wall as Roman work, and one may find for them this excuse, at least—that the existing walls, with but one deviation, follow the line of the Roman fortifications, part of which can be seen near the canal, not very far from the point at which it communicates with the Dee. The Road-Book of Antonine has this entry: “DEVA. LEG. XX VICTRIX.”
Among the pictures which most impressed the present writer’s boyhood was an illustration of Edgar the Peaceful being rowed down the Dee by eight tributary princes. The incident is not legendary, but historic. One might linger for almost any length of time in this unique city, recalling the memorable facts of its history, were not the Dee still tempting us along. It is a city surrounded by beautiful country, and is full of a quaint charm, with rare architectural features. The famous “Rows”—long covered galleries above the basements of the houses and shops, originally intended for purposes of hasty defence—probably reflect the influence of Rome on the city long after the departure of the legions. This was the surmise of Stukeley, who wrote, “The Rows, or piazzas, of Chester are singular through the whole town, giving shelter to the foot people. I fancied it a remains of the old Roman portico.” Nowhere else in these islands are the ancient, half-timbered houses, like the “God’s Providence House” which has become so famous, in such satisfactory preservation, and they have given a character even to the modern architecture of Chester, which, in many striking instances, is only a reproduction on a larger scale of the prevailing style of the past.