Chester City Walls
The city walls of Chester are the most complete surviving example of Roman and medieval city walls in Britain, a nearly continuous circuit of approximately three kilometres that follows the line of the original Roman fortress wall built in the first century AD and has been maintained, repaired and rebuilt in every century since. Walking the full circuit of the walls on the raised wall walk provides an exceptional perspective on the Roman origins of Chester, the medieval development of the city and the architecture of successive periods visible both inside and outside the wall circuit.
Chester was established as the legionary fortress of Deva Victrix, headquarters of the Twentieth Legion, in the first century AD, and the Roman wall formed the perimeter of a fortress designed to house five thousand troops and control the estuary of the River Dee and the approaches to Wales. The characteristic rectangular plan of the Roman fortress is still recognisable in the street pattern of the city centre, and sections of the original Roman wall masonry are visible in the lower courses of several sections of the surviving walls.
The medieval development of the walls extended their circuit to include the area of the Roman civilian settlement that had grown up outside the fortress, and the towers and gates added in the medieval period provide the most dramatic features of the current wall walk. The Eastgate Clock, added in 1899 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, has become the symbol of Chester and the most photographed feature of the walls. The Northgate leads to the site of the Roman amphitheatre, the largest Roman amphitheatre yet found in Britain, partially excavated and displayed beside the wall.
The raised walkway provides views over the black and white timber-framed buildings of the city centre, the cathedral close and the Rows, Chester's unique medieval covered shopping galleries, creating an urban perspective available nowhere else in England.