Chester, county town of Cheshire, is situated on the edge of the North Wales lowland, on the north bank of the River Dee 7mi/11km from its mouth. Chester is noted for the vast array of historic monuments including the medieval city walls, the most complete of its kind.
The city is an important traffic
junction, through which passes the Chester Canal linking Liverpool and Manchester.
The surrounding countryside is chiefly given over to agriculture, mainly potato growing, pig rearing and dairy farming, producing in particular the renowned Cheshire cheese. Salt mining, textiles and light industry are among the more important secondary activities. British Aerospace employs about 4,000 workers manufacturing Airbus parts. Service industries, shopping centers and tourism are other economic mainstays of the town.
For four hundred years, from A.D. 60 onwards, "Deva" (Castra Devana), the Roman camp on the River Dee, was the headquarters of the famous XX Legion. Once the Romans had departed however, there followed centuries of decline, with periodic occupation by hostile Vikings, Danes and Scots.
Eventually, so the Anglo Saxon Chronicle of 907 records, Legeceaster (town of the legions) was rebuilt by Aethelflaed, a daughter of Alfred the Great, and in 972 the rulers of Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Man all gathered there to pay tribute to the Saxon king Edgar. The town stoutly resisted the Norman Conquest, suffering in consequence.
In 1071 its fortunes again revived under the virtually independent rule of the Earl of Chester.
From the 12th to 14th centuries the west coast river port played an important role in maritime trade with Ireland, Scotland, Spain and France, commercial prosperity bringing with it a cultural flowering. In particular, from the end of the 14th century, the town's merchant guilds put on regular public performances of mystery plays, an early form of English drama. At the end of the 15th century however, the harbor began to silt up, impoverishing the town; not even Henry VII's grant of new privileges under the Great Charter of 1501 could arrest the decline.
During the English Civil War the citizens of Chester remained faithful to the Crown, even offering Charles I refuge. But in 1646 they too were forced to surrender to Parliamentary troops following a five month siege.
The opening of Liverpool's first lock controlled basin in 1715 marked the end of any hopes Chester had of reestablishing itself as a port. Since the 18th and 19th centuries the town has come to play a key role in the home market for agrarian products.
The Visitor Centre on Vicars Lane offers video presentations on local attractions. It also houses a reconstructed Victorian street featuring craft shops.
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