Chester

Chester began around AD 75 as Deva Victrix, a fortress built by the Roman Second Legion Adiutrix and later the base of the Twentieth Legion, Valeria Victrix, on the River Dee. Its name came from the river or the goddess of the Dee. Deva was one of the main army camps of Roman Britain and grew into a large civilian settlement; its four main streets, Eastgate, Northgate, Watergate and Bridge Street, still follow the Roman plan, and its amphitheatre, built in the 1st century, is the largest yet found in Britain.

After the Romans left, Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeated a Welsh army at the Battle of Chester in 616. In 689 King Æthelred of Mercia founded a minster church, now St John's, and around 907 Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, built a fortified burh whose defenders fought off a Viking siege. King Edgar held court here in 973. Chester was one of the last English cities to fall to the Normans; William the Conqueror ordered a castle built to control the town and the Welsh border, and in 1071 Hugh d'Avranches became Earl of Chester. The abbey of St Werburgh became the cathedral in 1541. In the Civil War the city sided with Charles I and was subdued by Parliament's forces.

The Industrial Revolution brought canals, railways and new roads, with workers housed in Newtown and Hoole. Much of the black-and-white architecture of the centre is Victorian, part of the Black-and-white Revival, many buildings designed by John Douglas for the Grosvenor family, the Dukes of Westminster. Suburbs such as Blacon grew in the 1950s, and the University of Chester gained full university status in 2005.

Chester's identity rests on its history. The walls, the Rows and the timber-framed fronts are what most visitors come for, and the city keeps old traditions alive. The Chester Mystery Plays, a cycle of Bible plays dating back at least to the early 15th century and banned under Elizabeth I, were revived for the Festival of Britain in 1951 and are staged every five years. The Midsummer Watch Parade, a costumed procession first recorded in the late 15th century, was revived in 1995.

Horse racing on the Roodee goes back to the 16th century — 1539 is the year usually cited — and the course is recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest still in operation; the May Festival dates from 1766. Race days are big social occasions, and the bars of the centre fill before and after.

Culture also has newer homes. Storyhouse, opened in 2017 in the remodelled 1936 Odeon cinema, combines a theatre, a cinema and the library; Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, founded in 2010, plays every summer; and the Chester Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1884. The city sits on the border with Wales — its urban area includes Saltney in Flintshire — and the Welsh have long called it Caer. Local tradition holds that only someone born inside the walls is a true Cestrian.

About 93,000 people lived in Chester's built-up area at the 2021 census, making it the largest settlement in the borough of Cheshire West and Chester; the wider city, including rural areas, had about 139,000. Most residents live outside the walls, in suburbs such as Hoole, Handbridge, Boughton, Upton, Blacon and Lache.

Tourism, retail, public administration and financial services carry the economy. Bank of America, NFU Mutual, Lloyds Bank, Virgin Money, Quilter and M&S Bank all have offices in the city, and the University of Chester and the Countess of Chester Hospital are large employers. Just across the Welsh border at Broughton, Airbus employs around 6,000 people making the wings for its aircraft, and many of them live in and around Chester.

The centre is busy with shoppers every day, using the Rows, an indoor market and two shopping centres, the Grosvenor and the Forum. The long Northgate redevelopment, begun in 2007, has reshaped the north of the centre with a cinema and a new bus interchange. Weekend life follows the racing calendar in summer, and the riverside at the Groves fills on warm evenings.

Chester's food scene is built around its streets rather than a single dish. Restaurants and cafés sit among the shops at both the street and Row levels of the Rows, above the medieval stone undercrofts. The Rows are believed to include the oldest shop front in England, and eating in them is part of a visit.

The county gives its name to Cheshire cheese, a dense, crumbly cheese made in Cheshire and the neighbouring counties of Shropshire, Staffordshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire, and it turns up on cheeseboards and in sandwiches across the city.

Pubs are the other strength. Chester has plenty of historic, traditional English pubs, several in Grade I listed buildings. On Lower Bridge Street the Bear and Billet occupies what has been described as the finest 17th-century timber-framed town house in Chester, and the Falcon, at the junction with Grosvenor Road, was the first building to have its section of the Rows enclosed, in the 17th century. Race days and summer weekends bring crowds to the riverside bars by the Groves and to the pubs inside the walls.