LOWER BRIDGE STREET, c. 1929
The Falcon Inn was a cafe at this time and not licensed. The dining rooms extended over Bennion's shop next door. This was a confectioners and newsagents and has several placards outside for newspapers and magazines such as Woman's Weekly and Answers. One of the headlines reads "Chester Baby's Beauty Prize Record", On the left is the Chester Cooperative Society whose building was previously The White Bear Inn. In front is 'bus No. 13 ready to set off for Llangollen .Grosvenor Street can be glimpsed through Little Cuppin Street which, together with the buildings on the extreme right, has disappeared with the advent of the ring road.

LOWER BRIDGE STREET, c. 1885
A photograph taken before the advent of picture postcards in 1894 but not issued as a postcard until 1902.Originally a private house, dating from 1621, the Old King's Head was the home of Randle Holme who was Mayor of Chester in 1633-4. Whilst living here he rebuilt and enlarged it for his family all or whom were armorial painters. Some of their work is preserved in the British Museum filling more than 250 volumes. The premises were first licensed in 1717. The frontage underwent major alterations in the 1870's and has been altered again since this photograph was taken. The shop on the right belonged to Mr. W. Blackmore, a tin plate worker, who has a selection of buckets and bowls on view. To the left is Castle Street where most of the buildings were lodging houses.

LOWER BRIDGE STREET, c. 1906
On the corner of Shipgate Street is the renovated Ye Olde Edgar which is here a tearoom and no longer licensed. From right to left the other buildings are Mrs. Hurst's sweet shop; The Bear and Billet Hotel; and the office of cab proprietor, Ellen Williams. Shipgate Street once led to the Shipgate, a postern gate in the City Wall giving Cestrians access to a ford across the Dee to Handbridge. This small gate was known locally as the "Hole-in-the-Wall" and in the early nineteenth century there was an inn of this name in Shipgate Street. The Shipgate was carefully dismantled in 1830 and, after a few years in the Town Clerk's garden in Abbey Square, was re-erected in the new Grosvenor Park in 1867. Shipgate Street leads on to St. Mary's Hill.