1779 James Boswel ; 1740 - 95

Was the friend and biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson ( 1709 -84 ) This is part of
a letter to Johnson, one of several letters expressing his delight in Chester and specially in its feminine society

We got to Chester about midnight on Tuesday ; and here again I am in a state of much enjoyment ...... Chester pleases my fancy more than any town I ever saw . But I will not enter upon it at all in this letter .

How long I shall stay here, I cannot yet say. I told a very pleasing young lady, niece to one of the Prebendaries, at whose house I saw her, '' I have come To Chester, Madam, I cannot tell how, and far less can I tell how I am to get away from it '' Do not think me to juvenile. I beg it of you, my dear Sir, to favour me with a letter while I am here , and add to the happiness of a happy friend, who is ever, with affectionate veneration

Most sincerely yours

James Boswell

1775 Thomas Pennant ( 1726 -98 )

a Flintshire landowner , was distinguished naturalist and travel-writer , author of a Tour of Scotland 1771 and three tours in Wales 1778-81. The first Welsh tour, taking in Chester, was made in 1773. Samuel Johnson called Pennant the best traveller he ever read. The following are brief extracts from a very long description.

The Approach to the city is over a very narrow and dangerous bridge of seven irregular arches, till of late rendered more inconvenient by the ancient gateways at each end, formerly necessary enough to prevent the inroads of my countryman , who often carried fire and sword to these suburbs; which were so frequently burnt, as to be called by the Britons Tre-boeth or the burnt town ......

The form of the city evinces its origin to have been Roman being in the figure of their camps with four gates; four principal streets; and a variety of lesser crossing the others at right angles, so as to divide the whole city into lesser squares. The walls the precincts of the present city, mark the limits of the ancient. No part of the old walls exist; but they stood, like the modern, on the soft freestone rock, high above the circumjacent country, and escapes on every front .

The structure of the four principal streets is without parallel. They run direct from east , and north to south were excavated out of the earth and sunk many feet beneath the surface. The carriages drive far below the level of the kitchens, on a line with ranges of shops; over which, on each side of the streets, passengers walk from end to end, secure from wet or heat, in galleries (or rows, as they are called ) purloined from the first floor of each house, open in front and balustraded. The back- courts of all these houses are level with the rows; but to go into any of these four streets it is necessary to descend a flight of several steps....

The streets were once considerably deeper, as is apparent from the shops, whose floors lie far below the present pavement . In digging foundations for houses, the Romans, pavement is often discovered at the depth of four feet beneath the modern. The lesser streets and alleys, which run into the principal streets, sloped to the bottoms of the latter, as is particularly visible in Lower Bridge Street; but these are destitute of the galleries or rows .....

Near the Bridge - gate is one ascent to the city walls; which are the only entire specimen of ancient fortification now in Great Britain . They are a mile and three quarters and a hundred and one yards in circumference; and, being the principal walk of the inhabitants are kept in excellent repair by certain impost, called murage duties, collected at the custom house, upon all the goods and merchandise brought into the port of Chester from parts beyond the saes, belonging to persons not freemen of the city .....

The castle ( before it was demolished and rebuilt by design of Thomas Harrison of Chester 1788 -1822 ) is composed of two parts, an upper and a lower: each with a strong gate, defended by a round bastion on each side, with a ditch, and formerly with draw-bridges. Within the precincts of the upper Ballium are to be seen some towers of Norman architecture, square, with square projections at each corner very slightly salient . The handsomest is that called Julias Caesar's .....

On the sides of the lower court stands the noble room called Hugh Lupus's hall in which the courts of justice for the country are held. The length of it is near ninety - nine feet; the breadth forty-five; the height very aweful, and worthy the state apartment of a great baron. The roof supported by wood work, in a bold style, carved; and placed on the sides, resting on stout brackets........

The county jail for felions and debtors is the last place to be described I can do little more than confirm the account of it by the humane Howard. Their day-confinement is in the little yard, surrounded on all sides by lofty buildings, impervious to the air, excepting from the above, and ever unvisted by the purifying rays of the sun. Their nocturnal apartment are in cells seven feet and a half by three and a half , ranged on one side by a subterraneous dungeon; in each of which are often lodged three or four persons . The whole is rendered more ( wholesomely ) horrible, by being pitched over three or four times in the year. The scanty air of the streight prison - yard is to travel through passages to arrive at them : through the window of an adjacent room ; through a grate in the floor of the said room into the dungeon; and finally, from the dungeon, through a little grat above the door of each of their kennels. In such places as these are the innocent and the guilty permitted to be lodged till the law decides their fate. I am sure the humane keeper Mr. Thomas, must feel many a pang at the necessary discharge of his duty. MR. Howard compares the place to the black hole of Calcutta . The view I had of it , assisted to raise the idea of a much worse prison; where
No light, but rather darkness visible,
served only to discover sights of woe.

.......... The present cathedral appears to have been built in the reigns of Henry VI, VII and VIII; but principally in those of the two last ....... The centre beneath the great tower is much injured by a modern bell-loft, which conceals a crown-work of stone, that would have a good effect was the loft destroyed ........ The choir is very neat ; and the Gothic tabernacle-work over the stalls is carved in a light and elegant manner.

St. John's, which lies without the walls on the east side of the city, was once a collegiate church ..... when entire , it was a magnificent pile. The tower once stood in the centre; but falling down in 1574, was never rebuilt .The chancel was probably demolished at the same time; at that end are still some fine arches, and other remains of ancient chapels. Withinside are curious specimens of the clumsy strength of Saxon architecture, in the massy columns and round arches which support the body. The tower is now placed at the west end and has on one side the legend, represented by the figure of a man and a hind .....

The number of parishes are nine. None of the churches are remarkable , excepting those of St. Peters and Trinty , distinguished by their handsome spires. The first finished in 1489 ; when the parson and others signalised themselves by eating part of a goose on it, and flinging the rest into the four streets.
The number of inhabitants, including the suburbs of Boughton and Handbridge , are estimated to be fourteen thousand and thirteen. The houses are almost entirely situated on a dry sand-stone rock. Whether it be owing to that, the clearness of the air, and purity of the water, it is certain that the proportion of deaths among the inhabitants is only one to thirty-one; where as I am informed, by my worthy friend Doctor Haygarth ( Dr. Haygarth a pioneer of infectious diseases, was appointed physician to Chester Royal Infirmary in 1776, in order to evaluate the state of health and conditions in the City.

he carried out the first census and calculated the annual births and deaths ) of this city , that in Leads, one in twenty-one; in Northampton and Shrewsbury, one in twenty-six ; and in London, one in twenty and three-fourths, annually pay the great tribute of nature .

I do not recollect any thing remarkable on the outside walls which has been unnoticed , unless it be the Rood - eye and the adjacent places. The Dee, after quitting the contracted pass at the bridge, flows beneath an incurvated clayey cliff, and washes on the right a fine extensive meadow, long since protected against its ravages by alofty dyke .....

At one end of the Rood-eye stands the House of Industry a large and useful building founded in 1757 , by money raised by the city on life annuities for several improvements within its liberties. Here the indigent are provided for in a fit manner, and to the great ease of the parishes; which are relieved from the burden of a numerous poor , who are to idle to work, and to proud to enter into this comfortable Asylum .......
A little beyond this building are the quays, cranes, warehouses, and other requisites for carrying on the naval trade of the city . These are opposite to the Water-gate; and have been much improved of late years, and the intervening space filled with a neat street. Ships of 350 tons burden can now reach the quays, where the spring tides rise at a medium fifteen feet : the neap tides, eight .......
There was lately a very fair prospect of adding much to the trade of the city , by an inland navigation, which was begun with great spirit a few years ago ( The Chester canal to run from Chester to Nantwich and Middlewich, was authorised by Parliament in 1772, and completed as far as Natwich in 1779; but the Middlewich branch was not built for another 50 years, because of opposition from the Trent and Mersey Company ) It was to run through the county beneath Beeston castle, and to terminate near Middlewich another branch was to extend to Namptwich. One mouth opens into the Dee, below the water-tower . A fine bason is formed, into which the boats are to descend, by means of five successive locks, beneath the northern walls of the city, cut in the live rock. A few miles of this design are completed: but by an unhappy miscalculation of expense, and by unforeseen difficulties occurring in the execution, such enormous charges were incurred, as to put a stop for the present to all proceedings ........

The idea of a canal of along the dead flat between Chester and Ince has been long since conceived by persons very conversant in the nature of the trade of this city (This scheme was authorised in modified form in 1793. The canal terminated on the Mersey not at Ince but at Netherpool, which is now Ellesmere Port.) One mouth might have opened into the Dee in the place of the present; another near Nice, which would create a ready intercourse with Liverpool, the Weever, and the salt-works and grate dairies on the river; with Warrington, and with the flourishing town of Manchester, and a numerous set of places within reach of the Mersey, and of the canal belonging to that useful Peer, the Duke of Bridgewater, to which the greatest of our inland navigation is concerned The little cut the city might, and still may enjoy un evenvied, unrivalled; and what is material consideration, the distance is trifling ( seven miles ) the expense small, and the profits to the undertaken great.

visited Chester in the course of a short tour of Lancshire Cheshire and North Wales. Little is known of him, except that he was born in preton about 1791 and apparently was living in London when he wrote this account of the tour.

Tuesday 18th August We then reach the antient city of Chester
We first enter this city by uper Northgate street, in the centre of which we pass under an antient gate termed Northgate having three others viz, southgate Eastgate and Watergate. In Easgate street is a handsome inn called the Royal Hotel kept by G. Thomas Jackson

We slept at the White Lion in Northgate street kept by W. Tomlionson . Close to the door of this inn is a mile stone 182 miles from London arrive in Chester about half past 11' o' clock a.m. close to the White Lion is Dickinson's Bank

Went to view the antient Cathedral . the interior of it strikes a stranger more with veneration and reverence for the antiquity of its sacred walls than with astonishment and admiration which can only be excited over some peculiar grace or elegance displayed in the architecture. This Cathedral has little to boast of in that respect being remarkable for its plainness

In Nortgate Street is the Town hall and the market place , both of which are close to the White Lion from which inn I left about half past 12 ' 0 'clock noon per Shrewsbury coach for Wrexham having remained one hour and a half at Chester; the name of the coach ' Highflyer '. Just beyond the city on the road to Wrexham we passed over a stone bridge built over the Dee. From it observed the Prison, a large stone building .