The history of Chester extends back nearly two millennia, covering all periods of British history in between then and the present day. The city of Chester was founded as a fort, known as Deva Victrix, by the Romans in AD 70s, as early as AD 74 based on discovered lead pipes. The city was the scene of battles between warring Welsh and Saxon kingdoms throughout the post-Roman years until the Saxons strengthened the fort against raiding Danes.
Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, Chester came under the Earl of Chester. It became a centre of the defence against Welsh raiders and a launch point for raids on Ireland.
The city grew as a trading port until the power of the Port of Liverpool overtook it. However the city did not decline and during the Georgian and Victorian periods was seen as a place of escape from the more industrial cities of Manchester and Liverpool.
Roman
The Romans founded Chester as Deva Victrix in AD 70s in the land of the Celtic Cornovii, according to ancient cartographer Ptolemy,Ptolemy (1992), Book II Chapter 2 as a fortress during the Roman expansion north.Mason (2001), p. 42.
It was named Deva either after the goddess of the Dee,Salway, P. (1993) The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain. ISBN CN 1634 or directly from the British name for the river. The 'victrix' part of the name was taken from the title of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix who were based at Deva.Mason (2001), p. 128. A civilian settlement grew around the settlement, probably starting as a group of traders and their families who were profiting from trade with the fortress.Mason (2001), p. 101. The fortress was 20% larger than other fortresses in Britannia built around the same time at York (Eboracum) and Caerleon (Isca Augusta);Carrington (2002), p. 33-35. this has led to the suggestion that the fortress may have been intended to become the capital of the Roman province rather than London (Londinium).Carrington (2002), p. 46. A perhaps likelier explanation is that there was more tribal unrest in what is now northern England, and so a larger garrison was needed.
Chester Roman Amphitheatre was built in the 1st century AD. It could sit between 8,000 and 10,000 people, and is the largest known military amphitheatre in Britain.Carrington (2002), p. 54-56. It is also a Scheduled Monument. The Minerva Shrine in the Roman quarry is the only rock-cut Roman shrine still in situ in Britain. The fortress was garrisoned by the legion until at least the late 4th century. Although the army would have abandoned the fortress by 410 when the Romans retreated from Britannia,Mason (2001), p. 209-210. the civilian settlement continued and its occupants probably continued to use the fortress and its defences as protection from raiders in the Irish Sea.
Sub-Roman and Saxon period
The Roman withdrawal from Britain was effectively complete by 410 and the Britons established a number of successor states. The area of Chester is thought to have formed part of the kingdom of Powys, whose early kings claimed descent from the exile Vortigern. Chester is generally identified with the listed as one of the 28 cities of Britain in the History of the Britons traditionally attributed to Nennius.Nennius (). Theodor Mommsen (). Historia Brittonum, VI. Composed after AD 830. Hosted at Latin Wikisource.Ford, David Nash. "The 28 Cities of Britain " at Britannia. 2000.Newman, John Henry & al. Lives of the English Saints: St. German, Bishop of Auxerre, Ch. X: "Britain in 429, A. D.", p. 92. James Toovey (London), 1844. In Welsh legend, King Arthur is said to have fought his ninth battle against the Saxon invasion at the "city of the legions" and later came to the city to try and subjugate the Welsh bishops to his mission. In 616, Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeated a Welsh army at the Battle of Chester and probably established the Anglo-Saxon position in the area from then on.
The Anglo-Saxons adopted the native name as the calque Legeceaster, which over time was shortened to Ceaster and finally corrupted to Chester. In 689, King Æthelred of Mercia founded the Minster Church of West Mercia on what is considered to be an early Christian site and known as the Minster of St John the Baptist, Chester (now St John the Baptist's Church), which later became the city's first cathedral. In the 9th century, the body of Æthelred's niece, was removed from Hanbury in Staffordshire; in order to save its desecration by Danish marauders, she was reburied in the Church of & Paul—later to become the Abbey Church and present cathedral. Her name is still remembered by the St Werburgh's Street which passes beside the cathedral. The Saxons extended and strengthened the city walls to protect the city against the Danes, who occupied it for a short time until Alfred seized all the cattle and laid waste the surrounding land to drive them out. In fact it was Alfred's daughter Æthelfleda, "Lady of the Mercians", who rebuilt the Saxon burh. In 907, she dedicated a new church to .
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that, in 973, King Edgar came to Chester following his coronation at Bath. He held his court in a place located in what is now called "Edgar's Field", near the old Dee bridge in Handbridge. Taking a barge up the River Dee from his court to the Minster of the Baptist, Edgar supposedly took the helm of the vessel while it was rowed by six or eightIn the account of the monk Henry Bradshaw. tributary "kings" (, "little kings").
The Chronicles of Melrose and of Florence of Worcester describe that "eight petty kings, namely, Kynath, king of the Scots, Malcolm, king of the Cumbrians, Maccus, king of several isles and five others, named Dufnall, Siferth, Huwall, Jacob and Juchill, met him there as he had appointed and swore that they would be faithful to him, and assist him by land and by sea".
After the kings swore fealty and allegiance they rowed him back to the palace. As he entered he is reported to have said that with so many kings' allegiance his successors could boast themselves to be kings of the English.
Middle Ages
After the 1066 Norman Conquest and the Harrying of the North, the Normans took Chester, destroying 200 houses in the city. Hugh d'Avranches, the first Norman earl (it was first given to a Fleming, Gherbod, who never took up residence but returned to Flanders where he was captured, and later killed) was William's nephew. He built a motte and bailey near the river, as another defence from the Celts. It is now known as Chester Castle and was rebuilt in stone by Henry III in 1245, after the last of six Norman earls died without issue.
Chester's earls were a law unto themselves. They kept huge hunting forests - Hugo was said to have 'preferred falconers and huntsmen to the cultivators of the soil', and Ranulf I converted the Wirral farmlands into another hunting forest. Before Ranulph, Hugo's son had inherited at the age of seven but died in the White Ship, along with the king's heir, William, on his way to England from France, where he was educated under the guardianship of Henry I. Earl Ranulf II, Ranulph's son, even helped to capture King Stephen in 1140, and ended up controlling a third of England after supporting Henry II's claim to the throne.
Other earls were Hugh II, Ranulf III and John the Scot. The traditional independence that Chester had under the earls was confirmed by a charter of Richard II in 1398 stating that 'the said county of Chester shall be the principality of Chester'. The earls are remembered with their shields on the suspension bridge over the river Dee, and again on the Grosvenor Park lodge.
The first earl had endowed a great Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Werburgh in 1092 (on the site of the church of dedicated to St Peter and St Paul). The monastery was dissolved under Henry VIII in 1540 and was rededicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary to become Chester Cathedral. Previously, the first Chester Cathedral was begun in 1075 by the first Norman Bishop of Mercia, Peter de Leya after the See was moved from Lichfield in Chester. De Leya's successor moved the See to Coventry and it later returned to Lichfield. St John's became the co-Cathedral and Collegiate Church.
There is a popular belief that it was the silting of the River Dee that created the land which is now Chester's racecourse (known as the Roodee), on which a stone cross still stands which is said to have been erected in memory of Lady Trawst who died as a result of an image of the Virgin Mary called Holy Rood falling upon her in Hawarden church a few miles down the river). But the Roodee was in existence as early as the 13th and 14th centuries, so it cannot have been created by later silting. The silting which led to the creation of the Roodee, in its current form, is well established on a sequence of post-medieval maps dating from the later 16th century. It has also been established by archaeological evaluations and excavations in the area of the Old Port, known as the Roodee tail. Physical evidence for the silting of this area of the city is shown by the building of the 14th-century port watch tower, now known as the Water Tower, which projects from the north-west corner of the city walls. This tower was originally built out into the river. Maps of the 16th century, its archaeological form and related documentary evidence all demonstrate this.
Despite stories to the contrary, the weir above the Old Dee Bridge was not built by the Romans but by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester between 1077 and 1101 to hold water for his river mills. The purpose of the weir on the river was to keep water levels high for these mills, one of which gave rise to the traditional song "Miller of Dee", which reflects the attitude of the happy miller who was granted a monopoly on grinding. It also prevents the salty tidal waters from entering the Dee fresh water basin.
Chester's port flourished under Norman rule. In 1195 a monk, Lucian, wrote 'ships from Aquitaine, Spain, Ireland and Germany unload their cargoes of wine and other merchandise'. In fact wine was imported through only four other English ports. During the 13th century Chester was famous for its fur trade and even by the mid-16th century the port was importing large amounts of fur and skins. In 1543 one ship alone brought in .
However the estuary was silting up so that trading ships to the port of Chester had to harbour downstream at Neston, Parkgate, and "Hoyle Lake" or Hoylake.
Chester's first known mayor was William the Clerk. The second known mayor was Walter of Coventry, who served between 1241 and 1245. The town's third mayor was Walter de Livet (Levett) who was named as mayor in a royal decree from May 1246.Appointment of Walter Lyvet, Chester, by King Henry III, Windsor, 1251, Patent Rolls of the Reign of Henry III Preserved in the Public Record Office, London, 1908 (Walter of Coventry and Walter de Livet may be the same person.)Mayors and Sheriffs of Cheshire, British History Online During early Chester history, the mayor often held his position for 10 years or more; apparently the early mayor's terms were open-ended. Late medieval Chester, 1230-1550, A HIstory of the County of Cheshire: Volume 5, Part 1, C. P. Lewis, A. T. Thacker, Victoria County HIstory, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
Tudor and Stuart times Originally the port was located to the north of the Watergate just below the city wall. To the south of the Watergate the Roodee existed in smaller form than today. The map sequence shows the river moving its course from against the wall north of the Watergate out to its current location between 1580 and approximately the 1830s. By the first edition OS map the river had reached its current position. However, it is apparent that some rivulets and inlets have been lost since, although some have been identified in archaeological work on the site of the former House of Industry and Gasworks.