Did You Know?

Chester has the only surviving rock cut Roman Shrine in the Country. Called Minerva’s Shrine after the goddess of war it is situated in Edgar’s field in Handbridge and is designated as a Grade I listed building by English heritage.

Chester is the best preserved walled city in England. Its grade I listed walls originate from 100 AD and form an almost complete circuit around the city. With a total walkway length of 1.8 miles there is only a small 100-metre section which is no longer intact.

A Tudor law dictated that Welshmen were not allowed in the city of Chester between sunset and sunrise. Another law apparently dictated that it was legal to shoot a Welshman with a bow and arrow within the city walls after midnight. There is no record of this law ever having been repealed

Chester’s racecourse, the Roodee, is Britain’s oldest sporting venue in continual use. The very first race took place in 1539 and replaced the particularly violent and bloody traditional local football game which was played there. The substitution was thought up by Mayor Henry Gee. It is thought that this is where the term ‘gee-gees’ (to refer to horses), comes from.

The car park just before New Gate stands on the site of the "Chester Lion Brewery Co Ltd" which was founded in 1642. The figure of the Lion belonged to the brewery and, from the 1840s, it was displayed upon a tall tower on the site of the existing car park. When it was known that the brewery was to be demolished, Chester Civic Trust stepped in to save the Lion. For a number of years his home was a Curzon park garden before he was relocated back to his original home where he stands proud atop the car park’s concrete tower.

Randolph Caldecott was born in No. 16 Bridge Street, Chester on the 22nd March 1846 the son of an accountant.
Famous for his illustrations in New York Daily Graphic, Punch, The London Graphic, Pictorial World, London Society and the Illustrated London News.

Chester is home to some of the best preserved Roman ruins in Northern Europe, from the remains of the city fortifications to the underground heating systems once found around the back of an old Spud-u-Like.Gladiators once battled to the death in the Roman city’s amphitheatre, the remnants of which are Britain’s largest surviving example of a Roman fighting arena.