OLD CHESTER

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 82, 5 April 1924, Page 16

OLD CHESTER

SCENES IN AND AROUND THE !'' .. C.ITYr. 'i .'. •

A first visit to Chester, usually begins with walking around the walls—a distance of some two miles. We enter at the East Gate, going' up the steps on the north. Here, at the end of the Abbey street, says the "Christian Science Monitor," we get a good view of the Cathedral. The P.hoenix Tower gives us our first view ,of the surrounding country; land it .'was .here that Charles I.- watched the progress of the Battle-of Rowton Moor. ,Then.;there is the North Gate and Morgan's Mount, used as a watch tower, and a semicircular structure known as Pemberton's Parlour. The other two main .towers, separated by a curtain wall, are Bonewaldesthorne and the Water Tower. From the Bridge Gate we see the seven-arched bridge,, the mills and \veir. The Wishing Steps lead us through the Wo.lt or Pepper Gate, completing our tour of the walls. There are many things over which we would linger: the Castle with' Caesar's Tower, the Church of 'St. John the Baptist, whose site is said to have, been chosen in 680 A.D: by ' Aethelred of Merck, on the spot where lie saw. the white hind. Much of the old structure is | incorporated in the later one; the Triforium and Clerestory dating back to 1190 are .particularly beautiful. But our imagination is drawn by the houses and the marvellous, loving;'.j Workmanship that has'gone inlo them. So we go down Watergate street and linger before one for the beauty of. its name—God's Providence House—with its inscription "God's Providence is mine inheritance." From this we turn to Bishop; Lloyd's with its panels representing., Bible .scenes. . , ' • . ' ■ :

And then we have reached the old palace of tl(e Stanleys dated;^ 1531, which Mr. Crickiriore in his account of Chester .calls "most 'likely, the-oldest house of any importance in the city; ; ••■• ■/■■■.' "Three handsome gables, carved oak beams, and uprights black; ■as ebony, grotesque figures, the arms' of Man and the Fleur-de-lis, a multiplicity of ornament all over' the front." Inside there, is a hall ■ with -a secret hiding place above, as well as the . underground passage below—a .place indeed where there .been tense, exciting hours! Above is a room, said'to'have been N occupied ,by Charles I. . . Here dwelt the famous Stanleys. If we went further down the street, we should see the Yacht Inn,; whore Dean Swift scratched ' unflattering verses on the window pane, but wo 'pause' at the. Stanley house, with its quaintly'beautiful frpnf,, ■ amid its rather ..squalid sur-. roundings, proudly aiooffrprii the world' of to-day... How... Ruskin might have loved this, reminder, of the ,days when a man's home was built to last and to house his family .ifor ! generations, a house, too, endowed with the personality of its builder. 'Now made more hospitable by age; more.sympathetic by the scenes that it .has known, what strange tales could' those" pointed gables tell, what grim- historic secrets may lurk .in that hidden passage, what \eclioes seem to sound jihrough its halls of'a day long past! ' • ■' '