Chester
Deemed one of Europe's most beautiful cities, Chester boasts well over six hundred listed buildings. Once the largest Roman fortress in the world, it is now home to the only surviving medieval shopping rows in Europe, the oldest racecourse in Britain and the second most photographed clock in England after Big Ben. It remains the capital of Cheshire and a county palatine, close to the Welsh border.
Let's explore it!"
Tudor and Stuart Tour
Discover tales of dissolution, pestilence and civil war with a Jacobean bricklayer.
Guided, themed, costumed tour.
Filthy and Spooky Tour of Chester
Discover Chester's filthy history...the side that makes other tours blush. From grimy street dirt to doing the dirty behind closed doors. Public Filthy tours take place throughout the year. 18 years and over only.
Chester Time Travel Tour
Two thousand years of local history in just sixty minutes with a variety of characters.
Guided, themed, costumed tour.
Chester War Tour
Prove Charles Smith's guilt (or innocence) in a fictional murder mystery in the city of Chester in 1914.
Self-guided, downloadable tour.
Chester Childrens Tour
From Romans to Knights, meet Chester's occupants as you time travel across thirteen hundred years.
Self-guided, downloadable tour.
Leeches to Fashionistas
Explore sites dating back nearly seven hundred years with medieval phsicians, civil war kings and fashion icons.
Self-guided, downloadable tour.
A brief history of North West England
Scroll through the timeline to discover some fascinating local facts...
-:-
Roman invasion of Britannia
Romans build forts at Carlisle (Luguvalium), Chester (Deva Victrix) and Manchester (Mancunium) with an auxiliary station at Lancaster (Calunium)
-:-
First church on site of Lancaster Priory
Monastery founded in Carlisle by St Cuthbert
Chester and Manchester burhs created by Aethelflaed and Edward the Elder
-:-
Chester castle built by William the Conqueror
Carlisle Castle built by William II
Lancaster Castle built by Roger of Poitou
Caer Luel/Carlisle becomes a city when King Henry I's founds its Diocese
Carlisle receives its first charter
King John grants Liuerpul (Liverpool) charter and 1421: original building (now Chetham’s Library) erected in Mameceastre (Manchester)
Duchy of Lancastre/Lancaster created by King Henry III
Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy’s rebellion in Chester
Wars of the Roses end
-:-
Chester becomes a city after King Henry VII's great charter
Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries
Henry VIII dissolves Chester‘s friaries, turning St Werburgh’s Abbey into new cathedral
(www.chestercathedral.com)
Lancaster Priory dissolved, reopening as parish church
(www.lancasterpriory.org)
Carlisle Priory dissolved, with secular chapter added
(www.carlislecathedral.org.uk)
War of the Rough Wooing between England and Scotland
George Marsh under house arrest for heresy in Chester
chesterghosttour.co.uk/
Birth of William Shakespeare
Mary Queen of Scots under house arrest in Carlisle Castle
Death of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch
Pendle witches tried at Lancaster Castle (www.visitlancashire.com)
James I
visits Carlisle, Lancaster and Chester on his jubilee progress
Royalists capture Lancaster but not its castle
(www.lancastercastle.com)
Carlisle Castle made a royalist garrison
Parliamentary siege of Chester (www.visitcheshire.com)
Parliamentary siege of Carlisle
Start of Second Civil War as Scots and royalists seize Carlisle
Quaker George Fox preaches in Lancaster (www.pendleheritage.co.uk)
Charles II visits Lancaster Castle, freeing its prisoners (www.lancashire.gov.uk)
Great Plague
(www.sicktodeath.org)
James II talks religious
toleration when visiting Chester (www.westcheshiremuseums.co.uk)
William III brings troops to Chester for Irish campaign
Tullie House built in Carlise
(www.tullie.org.uk)
Death of Anne I, the last Stuart monarch
First dock in Liverpool
Carlisle town hall built
Lancaster’s port breaks free of Chester’s control (www.visitlancaster.org.uk)
Precautionary walling up of Chester’s Watergate and Northgate against Jacobites
Bonnie Prince Charlie arrives in Lancaster with 5000 Jacobites (www.visitlancaster.org.uk)
Carlisle besieged and captured by Bonnie Prince Charlie
Carlisle-Newcastle turnpike road constructed
John Poole publishes Chester Chronicle
Start of American War of Independence
Chester-Nantwich Canal opens (www.gps-routes.co.uk)
Skerton Bridge built in Lancaster
-:-
John Rennie’s Wyre Viaduct opens for Lancaster’s canal (www.lancaster.gov.uk)
Wedding of novelist Sir Walter Scott in Carlisle
The Carlisle Journal newspaper introduced
William Minshull
publishes Lancaster Gazette
Anne Lister studies at York
Start of Napoleonic Wars
Demolition of Chester's Pentice
New courthouse built in Carlisle
Wigan highwayman George Lyon hanged in Lancaster
Gas lighting introduced in Carlisle and Lancaster
Peterloo Masacre in Manchester
Duke of Wellington visits Park House, Chester
Princess Victoria opens the Grosvenor Bridge in Chester
Great Reform Act
"The worst army hospital in Britain" built within Carlisle Castle
Cholera epidemics in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Liverpool
Birmingham's botanical gardens opened
George Hudson begins work on the Leeds-York line
Grasshopper Tea Warehouse opens in Lancaster
(www.thecoffeehopper.com)