Searching for Gloverstone.

Even though I've written a book on Chester, I keep on finding something new.

On this,  my second Heritage Day Tour for 2017, I found out more about the area of Chester known as the Gloverstone and grew to understand it more.

First: its location.  I had thought that it was approximately just beneath the site of the Military Museum.

Military Museum (and therefore site of Gloverstone) to the right.

And so it is, but our guide was able to be more precise.  It was the triangle of land between the castle ditch

The southeast portion of the castle ditch leading parallel to St Mary's Hill down to the river.

and Castle Street and the southern end of Bunce Lane.

Castle Street - Military Museum (Gloverstone to the right).

It consisted - just for a couple of hundred years until the beginning of the nineteenth century - of two courts of houses one either side of the castle entrance. The courts were notorious places of dense housing, which in the nineteenth century were generally considered to be slums.

However, the courts of Gloverstone were sought-after places to live because they were independent and outside the jurisdiction of the city.  They did not have to abide by city regulations or pay their taxes, and so were particularly attractive to craftsmen and traders who were 'foreigners' and had very little chance of becoming members of the city guilds. The Gloverstone had its own markets and fairs in which they did not have to pay taxes or tariffs, and so were, no doubt, greatly unpopular with the city corporation.

The boundary of this Gloverstone area was also marked by a stone. At this stone, criminals from the county were handed over to the mayor and corporation to be hanged outside the city at gibbet hill in Boughton.  It may also have been used to stretch out skins for glovers to make gloves.  The location of this Gloverstone is now uncertain.  It might be under the step of the military museum's yard to Castle Street.  Or it might be in the garden of the Water Tower at the north west corner of the city wall - put there as 'a curiosity' when the city baths were built in the nineteenth century.

When Thomas Harrison came to build the new court and county gaol in the nineteenth century, the Gloverstone area was cleared of houses.

A fragment of the Gloverstone land to the south was donated to Mary's churchyard

Piece of Gloverstone (green grass are in distance) donated to St Mary's Churchyard.

in compensation for land that was dug away for the new gaol.

East side of St Mary's Churchyard - ditch to the right of railings.

And on the subject of the County Gaol, I hadn't realised quite so much of it remains.  Not just the debtors' wing in rusticated stone, and the wall to the yard, but the smoother stone of the polygonal viewing tower where the warder could see all the felons in their yards below. 

Looking at polygonal warder's lookout of Chester County Gaol (centre of picture).

In this scene there is both - as well as 1950s old council offices to the left, now part of Chester University, and the 1990s covered bridge for access to Crown Court Number 4 (I think).

We discussed lots more: the chemical factories, the tanning, the skinning, and all the other changes that have affected this small part of Chester.  Altogether, a very interesting tour.

Western Command: Heritage Day 1 2017.

I have long wanted to visit 'Western Command': the imposing Classical-looking building on the banks of the Dee.

Western Command from Riverside

I've gone past the gates in Queen's Park and looked through the gates

Original 1930s gateposts

but today I had the chance to look inside thanks to Chester University and the Heritage Open Day.

Entrance to Western Command from south

Beginning with what 'might' have happened during World War Two (the meeting of Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, and Charles de Gaulle), two members of staff gave a very interesting potted history of the place from the first floor.  As well as having a great view from the balcony over the river

View from the second floor

it also contained one of the largest tables I've ever seen in my life.  I was hoping it was Churchill's mapping table, but it was not.  It was part of the furnishing of the bank when it took over in the 1990s.  The bank was also responsible for the Portico additions front and back,

North side of Western Command facing the river.

and the Art Deco interior design.

Entrance lobby

Eventually, the bank gave it up and the University took over a couple of years ago and named the building after Churchill, whose bust adorns the entrance.

Bust of Churchill

One of the main points of interest was the bunkers.  I read somewhere that these were a mirror image of the offices above ground, but it seems, from the descriptions we were given, that this is not quite the case.  They are not directly below the building, but a little to the east and north due to geological considerations.

Plan building and bunkers provided by staff from the university

They are also inaccessible due to being in an unsafe state, although this has not stopped some urban underground explorers.

Secret Underground Tunnels, Western Command Chester

Garage number 7 (built by the bank for their car pool) is approximately over one of the corridors of the bunkers,

Number 7 garage - location of bunkers (beneath)

which would have been entered via this door at the side

Original 1930s entrance (possible location of bunker entrance)

or via an entrance inside the building which has now been blocked off

Possible location of bunker entrance.

or a couple of entrances on the river bank.

There is talk that one day these bunkers may be open to view to the general public - but the river is intent on claiming them too, and I suspect may get there first.

Altogether, an extremely interesting tour - whetting my interest to find out more.

The Cathedral Ark Exhibition: a reaction in poetry.

Ark is Chester Cathedral's exhibition of 90 pieces of modern art called Ark.  It is a great space for art and I particularly liked the thoughtful ways the pieces were presented, sometimes emphasising the traditional pieces already there, sometimes presenting an interesting juxtaposition that made me notice both old and new a little more.

Here, for instance, is the cast of an eagle in bronze by Elisabeth Frink posturing at another, older eagle in another lectern

Eagle Elisabeth Frink

while Antony Gormley's exquisitely-carved foetus in a highly polished surgical bowl is placed in a glass box of other small and heavy objects

Home and Away by Antony Gormley

David Mach's 'Vessel' with its millions of carpet tacks each laboriously tacked onto wood in the cloisters where the monks once worked

Vessel by David Mach

and Emily Mayer's 'Final Voyage-Precious Cargo (a dead dog crammed in a suitcase)

Final Voyage by Emily Mayer

is placed on an old-fashioned hearse in the Chapter House

Final Voyage by Emily Mayer

I was pleased to learn that the calf in Damien Hirst's 'False Idol'was stillborn with its golden hooves representing the golden calf that the Israelites worshiped while Moses was busy receiving the ten commandments on Mount Sinai.  

False Idol by Damien Hirst

Particularly suitable for the nave then, as was Jon Buck's 'Ark: High and Dry' (its intricate patterning set off by the equally intricate patterns on the screen to the choir)

Ark: High and Dry and Jon Buck

and  'Noah and the Raven'.

Noah and the Raven by Jon Buck

There were many representations of birds including Geoffrey Dashwood's Peacock

Peacock by Geoffrey Dashwood

and, outside, Anthony Abraham's dove.

Figure with Bird 1997Anthony Abrahams

Figure with Bird (Haiku)

She stands, while a dove
settles on her outstretched hand.

After chaos, calm.

Chromosomal Dance 2009 by Sue Freeborough

Chromosomal Dance.
Your Y, my X.
We shuffle, melt 
recombine.

Becoming 2017 by Sue Freeborough

Becoming.
Your copper, my tin.
Each time  
a new alloy.

The Patriarch, Jambo 1995 by Ralph Brown

The Patriarch, Jambo.
Stand tall Silverback.
Parts of you have 
traveled the world
like dandelion seed
taking root.

Jambo (detail) by Ralph Brown

But your strongest part
- that sat bridge-like over the child -
would have died with you
except for this
memorial in bronze.

Narcissus

I hear that it's a test.

Draw a spot 

and at a certain age 

we know, as humans,

that the mark is on our skin

when we see it on ourselves.

The Birth of Consistency by Angus Fairhurst

For some of us

this is just the start

an endless inspection 

of face and smile

at the end of a stick

or mirrored in a pond.

The Birth of Consistency (detail) by Angus Fairhurst

A reflection of words then -

or an image of a contoured pout

crafted from pigments

and held for the click.

Brown's Department Store: a potted history.

Until 1976, Debenhams on Eastgate Street was 'Browns' a family-run department store.  For three generations, starting in 1819, it was run by a series of brothers all of whom contributed a huge amount to the city.  But the business was started single-handedly by Susannah Brown (née Towsey), a draper and haberdasher who, in 1791,  moved from her previous premises near the Cross to more commodious premises on Eastgate Street.

Entrance to Browns along Eastgate Street

Susannah seems to have been an impressive person.  To restock her shop she would have to make an arduous six-day journey to London to buy hats, haberdashery, and gloves, which she would then advertise in the local paper.  As well as being the mother of three sons, she quietly expanded her business, so that when she died in 1819, it included baby and funeral wear.  Susannah's building was above the 'Honey Steps' - the place where honey was sold as part of the thirteenth century Corn Market.   Her son William, joined later by his brother Henry, expanded the shop and replaced the Honey Steps with a shop in the neoclassical style.

By now the shop was being compared with shops in Regent Street, and the brothers - both Whigs and both mayors at one time or another - made great contributions to public life in the city.  It was thanks to them, for instance, that Chester became a centre for rail travel.

The brothers died within months of each other by 1853 and, since neither were married,  they were succeeded by their nephews William and Charles.  They continued the family tradition of improving the city: in particular the Rows, the Groves walkway and the Flookers Brook garden area
in Hoole.  They also expanded the shop, building in both the Gothic (Crypt Building)

The Gothic Building (seen from Eastgate Street Row North)

and half-timbered style (at first leased to Bollands', confectioners to royalty).

Bollands' Building from St Werburgh Street

This was the time of a 'live-in' glamorous staff in black uniform selected from London and Paris, and when titled shoppers would arrive in carriages with footmen, who would transport their wrapped purchases on a velvet cushion.

In 1900, it was the turn of brothers Francis and then Harry to take the reins.  In this Edwardian era, the shop was again extended and improved with the arcade (still visible on the first floor), a dance floor, a restaurant and a roof garden.

Eastgate Row South.

To the disgust of some, shoppers were encouraged to come in and browse - as well as entertained by mannequin displays, lectures and shows - and even 'people from the back streets' were included.  The public works continued: before Harry Brown died in 1936, he and his wife Phyllis gave the Meadows to the people of Chester, and in 1938 Phyllis, Susannah's great granddaughter-in-law, became Chester's first female mayor.  A fitting way, perhaps, to end this short account of one of Chester's great family dynasties.

The Isolation Hospital, Sealand Road

Today it's called the Mulberry Centre.  A red brick chimney and some walls.  These are the remnants of the isolation hospital that opened in 1899 at the city boundary.  Plans from 1908 show the main building consisted of a series of small one- and two-bedroomed wards (each with nurses' quarters and bedrooms attached), a laundry and a washroom.  Presumably, it is the laundry that remains - together with the chimney that once serviced it.

The 1910 map shows there was also an administration block and then four separate pavilion wards in the grounds beyond a wall.  Maybe some diseases were considered to be more infectious than others.  Altogether, it could take forty-six patients.  It was built to accommodate and treat patients with certain notifiable infectious diseases: scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid. 

There is little of this left now.  In 1947 the isolation hospital was closed, and patients transferred to other hospitals, including, eventually, the City Hospital in Hoole.  In return, elderly people from the City Hospital were transferred here.  Today, it is the Mulberry Centre - a day centre for adults with severe learning difficulties.  A circular driveway leads to a barred gate, making it difficult to see anything very much: but there is the chimney and one of the one-storeyed wards with vents where the windows used to be.  An old wall surrounds what used to be the hospital garden and includes the Park West Employment Park - the botanical theme extended to include five separate offices named after trees: Elder, Maple, Poplar, Willow and Beech. From March 2012, Beech House, one of the larger buildings, has been the home of the Chester Chronicle.