The Railway Station.—Chester the Terminus of Six
Railways.—Flookersbrook.—Lead Works.—Canal and Bridge.—William Penn the
Quaker.—Foregate Street and Old Watling Street.—Post Office and Old
Bank.—The Eastgate, Roman and Mediæval.—The Eastgate of to-day.
PRESUMING, gentle reader, you have sagaciously chosen _us_ as your
companion, we will evince our desire to be friendly and agreeable by
meeting you at the Station (for doubtless you have only just arrived by
train), and taking you affectionately under our wing, will straightway
introduce you to the chief Lions of Chester.
What think you, in the first place, of our noble STATION, with its
elegant iron roof of sixty feet span, and its thirteen miles of railway
line? Twenty years ago, the ground it stands upon, and indeed the
neighbourhood around, were but plain kitchen-gardens and uninteresting
fields. But a marvellous change has been effected since then, and, as if
by enchantment, suburban Flookersbrook has now become the very
life’s-blood of the city. Stretching away on either side of us, as far
as the eye can reach, we see the passengers’ arrival and departure sheds,
booking offices, refreshment rooms, goods and carriage depots,
waterworks, gasworks, and all the other facilities and conveniences which
are the usual characteristics of the railway system; while beyond the
limits of the Station, and indeed of the city itself, which here
intrenches upon the township of Hoole, the busy hum of life is
ceaselessly heard spreading itself in every direction, and rapidly
transforming the region of the plough into the turmoil of the town.
This Station is the grand central terminus of six several lines or
branches, all meeting at Chester, viz., the London and North Western; the
Great Western; the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction; the
latter company’s branch to Manchester; the Chester and Holyhead; and the
Chester and Mold Railways. It was erected in 1847–8 at the joint expense
of the four principal companies, and is acknowledged to be one of the
handsomest, as it is certainly one of the most extensive railway
establishments in the kingdom. The building was designed by C. H. Wild,
Esq., C.E., and Mr. Thompson, of London (the latter the architect of the
Derby station) and was built by that enterprising and well-known
contractor, Mr. Thos. Brassey, whom Cheshire proudly claims as her son.
The passengers’ shed occupies a space of ground nearly a quarter of a
mile in length, and presents to the city an elegant façade 1010 feet
long, and a frontage, including the house and carriage landings, of 1160
feet. It is built of dark red fire bricks, relieved with copings and
facings of Stourton stone. At each end of the Station, and projecting
from the main building, there is a shed for cabs and omnibuses awaiting
the arrival of trains, each 290 feet long by 24 feet broad, covered with
an iron roof.
[Picture: General Railway Station]
On the inner side of the building is the General Departure Platform,
extending 1010 feet in length by twenty feet in width; this and three
lines of rails are covered with an exceedingly chaste and elegant iron
roof of sixty feet span, designed and carried out by Mr. Wild, C.E.
Behind this shed again, but visible from the general platform through the
arches, is the spare carriage shed, 600 feet long by fifty-two feet
broad. The whole arrangements of the buildings are admirably adapted to
carry on with comfort to the public and with facility to the employés,
the immense business that has so suddenly been brought to the city by the
convergence of so many railways at this point.
Some idea may be formed of the extent of the business here transacted,
when it is stated that of passenger trains only, there now arrive and
depart upwards of ninety-eight, averaging 3500 passengers daily, or one
and a quarter millions annually.
The full extent of the passengers’ station from the carriage landing at
the east end to the one at the west end, is 1160 feet. This noble
building is an object of considerable attraction: it occupies a space of
ground a quarter of a mile in length;—only half the building appears in
our illustration. Great expedition was displayed by Mr. Brassey in its
erection, for although the first stone was only laid in August 1847, on
the 1st of August 1848 it was publicly opened for traffic.
The centre of the building, which is two stories in height, contains in
the upper compartments, offices for the General Station Committee for the
Chester and Holyhead, and the Great Western Railways; while on the ground
floor, besides the usual offices and waiting rooms, we find the noble
range of REFRESHMENT ROOMS, presided over with efficient zeal and
attention by MR. HOBDAY, and his select corps of experienced assistants.
If after your late journey, you feel any of the cravings of the inner
man,—if dinner _à-la-mode_ lie uppermost in your thoughts—if you would
enjoy an invigorating cup of coffee, unimpeachable pastry, a good glass
of ale, or a fragrant cigar, take a turn in the REFRESHMENT ROOMS, and
the utmost wish of your soul will be incontinently gratified.
The entire number of hands employed upon the passenger station is 109,
and in the goods department 130, including clerks, porters, pointsmen,
&c. Between seventy and eighty goods trains arrive and depart every
twenty-four hours, averaging 1600 wagons daily. In 1855, somewhere about
684,000 tons of goods, minerals and livestock passed under the
manipulation of Mr. H. Parker, general goods manager. The Station
Committee manufacture their own gas, the consumption of which upon this
station is about 6,500,000 feet per annum. The present gas and
waterworks now need to be removed more to the south-east in order to
afford additional station room—the _smallness_ of the present immense
building being a source of _continual and growing_ inconvenience. {13}
[Picture: Brook Street, and Liverpool Arms Hotel]
Leaving now the Station, we see upon our left hand the lofty SHOT TOWER
and LEAD WORKS of Messrs. Walker, Parker and Co., proprietors of a
similar establishment near London Bridge; while on the right our view is
obstructed by the handsome and commodious Bridge which here stretches
across the railway, and connects the city with its suburb, Flookersbrook.
Those carpetbags and cloaks, by-the-bye, however useful they may be in
their way, are but superfluous companions for a jaunt about the city.
Suppose, then, we drop in at the LIVER, a most respectable HOTEL, within
hail of the Station, and there depositing our luggage in one of the cosy
bedrooms of that establishment, we will sally forth on our mission.
After one night’s sojourn at this house you’ll know _your_, hotel, we
promise you, for all future time. Wending our way into the city, along
Brook Street, we come in due course to COWLANE BRIDGE, erected in 1776,
when the canal which flows beneath it was originally projected.
[Picture: Chester Cathedral, from Cowlane Bridge]
From this point we have our first glimpse of the CATHEDRAL and CITY
WALLS, and a venerable sight it is, as our little illustration
sufficiently testifies. Towering aloft above surrounding objects the
sacred fane of St. Werburgh, presents itself to our view, in all its
massive but rugged proportions, as the mother church of a vast and
populous diocese. Of the Cathedral itself, as also of the Walls, we
shall have abundance to say by-and-bye.
Cast your eye to the right, along the hue of the City Walls, and at their
north-east angle take a distant view of yon reverend turret, overhanging
the Canal. How forcibly does it remind us that—
The days of old, though time has reft
The splendours they once cast,
Yet many a relic still is left
To shadow forth the past!
People call it, in these days, the PHŒNIX TOWER; but two hundred years
ago, and even then it was accounted _old_, the name it usually bore was
_Newton’s Tower_. On its lofty ramparts, in 1645, stood the royal
martyr, King Charles, to witness a sanguinary contest not far from the
city, which ended in the total defeat of his troops by the parliamentary
forces. In that day’s struggle, and in the Siege that followed it, many
a Chester hero bit the dust; and the roll-call that evening proclaimed
many an infant fatherless, many a wife a widow! But why should we
anticipate? We shall soon be close to the very walls of this Tower, and
may then soliloquise to our heart’s content on those terrible times.
For the present, then, we will move on along Frodsham Street, anciently
called Cowlane, pausing midway to reflect that in the Quakers’
Meeting-house, at the corner of Union Walk, Friend William Penn, the
founder of Pennsylvania, held forth to his admirers, King James II. being
on one occasion an attentive hearer. Continuing on our course a short
distance, we emerge from Cowlane into a wide but irregular street, named
indifferently FOREST or FOREGATE STREET, the latter, from its standing
immediately before the gate,—the EASTGATE, close by, being always
esteemed _the porta principalis_ of the city. Foregate Street forms a
part of the old Watling Street of the Romans; so that it existed as a
road almost as early as the crucifixion of Our Lord! Fifty years ago
this was as curious a street as any within the city; but the ancient
piazzas which once ran continuously along it, are now becoming mere
specks in the landscape, and “like angels’ visits, few and far between.”
Not far from where we are standing, near the corner of St. John’s Street,
are two superior travellers’ inns, the HOPPOLE, and the BLOSSOMS, the
latter a house of the highest standing and respectability, admirably
adapted for the accommodation of visitors, and for all those who would
enjoy the comfort of a home combined with the advantages of a first-class
HOTEL. At the rear of the Blossoms, in St. John Street, is the POST
OFFICE, a neat stuccoed building, erected in 1842, at the sole expense of
William Palin, Esq., the present post-master. Prior to this, the
business of the Post-Office was conducted in a dark and dreary building,
situate up a court, still known as the Old Post-Office Yard. It was to
Rowland Hill, and his wonder-working penny stamp, that the citizens owed
this satisfactory change from darkness unto light.
[Picture: Foregate Street, and Blossoms’ Hotel]
Yonder white stone building at the head of St. John Street is the
well-known banking establishment of Messrs. Williams & Co., usually
denominated the Old Bank. And, here, crossing the street at an altitude
of some thirty feet, is the EASTGATE, a noble arch, with a postern on
either side, erected in 1769, on the site of a Gateway, dating back to
the days of the Third Edward, by Robert, first Marquis of Westminster,
whose arms, with those of the city, ornament the keystone of the centre
arch.
Handsome and commodious as is the present EASTGATE,—on every score but
that of convenience, it is immeasurably inferior to its predecessor.
Could we but look upon the structure as it existed only a hundred years
ago, with its beautiful Gothic archway, flanked by two massive octagonal
towers, four stories in height, supporting the Gate itself and the rooms
above,—could we but resuscitate the time-worn embattlements of that
“ancient of days,” we should wonder at and pity the spurious taste that
decreed its fall. “Oh, but,” we may be told, “the present Gate was a
public improvement.” A plague upon such improvements, say we! We should
vastly have preferred, and so would every lover of the antique, whether
citizen or stranger, to have retained the old Gate in its integrity,
altered, had need been, to meet the growing wants of the times, rather
than have thus consigned it to the ruthless hands of the destroyer. Oh!
ye spirits of the valiant dead,—you who lost your lives defending this
Gate against the cannons of Cromwell, why did ye not rise up from your
graves, and arrest the mad course of that “age of improvement!” When
this Gate was being demolished, the massive arches of the original Roman
structure were laid bare to the view, and a portion of one of them is yet
to be seen on the north-west side of the present Gateway.
At this point we will turn away from the street, and, ascending the steps
on the north-east side, will amuse ourselves in the next chapter with a
quiet WALK ROUND THE WALLS OF CHESTER.