What's new?
  The Handel's Court Gallery's new branch at 120 Northgate Street is now open! Steve Howe, the author of these pages, will be based there and welcomes your visit. Our new extension stocks a wide range of quality arts and crafts from the finest local creators. Information is available about the upper gallery and its exhibitions and classes, Steve's Chester guided walks and much more.
We welcome approaches from artists and craftsmen interested in exhibiting in our lovely new space. We also welcome volunteers to help and learn at the galleries.
15th June 2013: The Chester Virtual Stroll now has its own Facebook page! Visit us and get involved!
• New material about events at the Chester Amphitheatre and Dee House has been added here.
• A new collection of images of the Chester Canal has been added here.
• Tragedy at the Yacht Inn: a grim, but true, tale by Elaine Pierce Jones of the excellent Chester History & Heritage. We're very grateful to her for sharing it with us here.
• A growing gallery of Hoole photographs old and new has just been launched: 'A Hoole Miscellany'. Early days yet, and many more images of the fascinating suburb that is the author's home will be added soon.
• Many new additions have recently been made including a new collection of the author's photographs of Conway, a small gallery of photographs of the Mercia Square precinct that was demolished in the early 1990s and more old photographs of the Chester Royal Infirmary.
• Two more pages of photographs of the building of Chester's Inner Ring Road have been added, as has a new gallery of Steve Howe's images of Chester in the Snow. Our gallery of photographs of the 1992 cycle of Chester Mystery Plays now has more and better quality pictures (with more to follow).
• Some views, old and new, of the medieval Great and Little Abbey Gateways in Northgate Street have been added here and a gallery of images of the picturesque, but long-vanished Old Lamb Row is here.
• New entries has been made to our Vanished Pubs of Chester gallery: The Fox & Barrel in Grosvenor Street, the Hop Pole Hotel in Foregate Street and the Swinging Gate Inn in Saughall and new pictures have been added of the Castle Inn in Nicolas Street. One of them also shows the ancient Church of St. Martin and the other fine buildings which were done away with to make way for the Inner Ring Road in the 1960s. New clients have been added to our Chester & Liverpool Guided Walks pages...
• In view of recent news of controversial redevelopment, a collection of photographs of the Chester Leadworks has been added here. Learn more about the Leadworks and its historic Shot Tower in our Chester Canal chapters...
There are currently strong moves afoot from planners, politicians and profit-driven developers to do away with much of Chester's precious Green Belt, which was wisely put in place to prevent our small, historic city from gobbling up its surrounding villages and becoming just part of another urban sprawl.
We ask you, if you love our city, to visit the Save Chester's Green Belt website from where you can easily dispatch emails to your Member of Parliament and local councillors, telling them just what you think about the proposals.
A further excellent and informative site, that of the Friends of North Chester Green Belt has also been recently launched.
Please take the time to visit them and get involved- once our countryside is gone, it's gone for ever! Learn more about the green belt concept here..
Whether resident or visitor- real or virtual- if you enjoy this online stroll around our beautiful city, consider joining me on one of my popular, year-round real Chester Guided Walks. Be sure also to visit my other websites: GoodHiding- leather products handmade in Chester and leather repair service and The Black & White Picture Place- fine photography for all occasions and expert photographic restoration. These and more are now based at The Handel's Court Gallery!
What a few of our visitors have said:
"I just wanted to send my regards and say to you how much I appreciate having access to the information on your site. My wife and I live in North Carolina, USA. We have a dear friend who lives in Chester. Your wonderful photos, maps, history, etc. have allowed us to learn about and virtually visit Chester without actually, physically being there. Again, thank you.
Ken & Bonnie Pittman, January 2012
 "Our editors have selected your site as one of the best on the Internet when reviewed for quality, accuracy of content, presentation and usability... We know quality is always difficult to accomplish and maintain. Congratulations on being a selected member of the Britannica Internet Guide.
A virtual tour of the Roman and medieval city walls of Chester, England. Offers a detailed history, a description, drawings and photographs of the walls as well as of the buildings and sights of Chester that can be viewed from the walls. Highlights of the tour include the Cathedral, the Castle, the Roman Amphitheatre, and all the wall's gates. Designed for the armchair traveller or for the tourist who is planning a visit to Chester, A Virtual Stroll provides an elegant and engaging history of the city dating from Roman times to the present"
Encyclopaedia Britannica: February 2000
 "Congratulations! Your website has been selected and evaluated by a network of subject specialists and included in the Famous Websites resources by FamousWhy.com. It have also been granted with the Famous Website Award, especially for: originality, creativity and vision • fantastic design • excellent structure • user friendliness • professional appearance. More information about the 'Famous Website Award' is available here.
6th March 2010
 "Chester: a Virtual Stroll Around the Walls is an informal- but very informative and entertaining- online guided tour of the ancient and beautiful city of Chester which possesses the only complete circuit of Roman/Saxon/medieval city walls in the UK. The author, an independent guide, photographer and author, tells many colourful tales from history and records the impressions from over 800 years of Chester's visitors. In addition, there are many photographs, drawings and maps (both contemporary and historical), news of local environmental and planning developments, links to interesting places, and lots of regularly-updated useful information for the scholar, resident and visitor".
SchoolZone: September 2009
"I often use your website to find out interesting and unusual
facts about Chester; I think the site is fantastic...
You have my full support."
Stephen Mosley, Member of Parliament for the City of Chester: July 2011
"Dear Sir, as a student of old London and the British Empire, I applaud your website! It far exceeds any I have seen, and I pour over it constantly. If I am not careful, hours will dwindle away until something interrupts me! As an entertainer, I have plenty of time to explore your site, and I wanted to take the time to "Thank You" for all your hard work and let you know how much I enjoy it! BRAVO Sir and keep up the great work!
Dan Rocco, Chicago USA, 8th April 2009
"Your site is truly wonderful. You do the marvelous old city of Chester full justice with your telling of her tale. Thank you for all that!"
Eric Hall, Philadelphia USA (formerly of Liverpool), February 2007
"My very sincere congratulations on the development and presentation of your fantastically outstanding web site. For the last four hours, tears have stung my eyes at the sight of old familiar places that rekindled half forgotten emotions and memories both sad and happy. I have felt anger too at the vandalism of the developers, aided and abetted by councillors apparently, that have destroyed forever irreplaceable history in the name of progress and the accumulation of wealth. But I mustn’t get political; I really just wish to thank you for a most memorable afternoon, a time that I will no doubt repeat again and again in the future.
It has been thirty seven years since I said goodbye to Blighty, looking back from thirty thousand feet over the English Channel, and strangely since Christmas I have been tentatively formulating plans to return or a short holiday later this year. Deciding on doing a little research I logged onto Chester City Council and I discovered your truly great web site. Thank you".
Allan J Rimmer, Victoria Australia, 5th March 2006
 "Hello, I'd just like to congratulate you on being the owner and author of the most wonderful site about Chester which I have encountered. It's bursting with information, images and enthusiasm and is incredibly detailed - fascinating and very useful!
I am a Chester resident myself- in Newton- and have long had an abiding affection for the city. Almost all my holidays have been (voluntarily!) taken within the UK and yet I always return to Chester. Your website reminds me why. It is a valuable resource - I've seen many Chester sites but none have come close.
Kate Fletcher, 29/3/05
"Hello to all who created this page and to those who visit it. Today I was feeling melancholic thinking about the time I spent in Chester, so I decided to find something about it in the web and which was my surprise that I found you. I love Chester even more than my own city, I spent lovely moments there, every winter I was anxiously waiting for summer to come to go to Chester; its roman walls, its fantastic walks all along the river, its roads, its pubs, its parks, its shops, its cinemas where I saw many films, the Cathedral so beautiful, its castle, The Northgate Arena swimming pool, The zoo the best in Europe, its history and architecture, its people…Chester is always busy, many visitors enjoy it during the year. I loved to walk around town and look at everyone while I was waiting for the bus. To those who are going to visit it I assure you l will enjoy it. It is a very beautiful romantic, historic and shopping place.
Thanks for the site, it is a perfect work,
Lola, Madrid, Spain, July 2003.
"Thank you! I studied the Virtual Stroll pages while flying across the Atlantic and you can only imagine how much your information helped me enjoy my first visit to Chester. Walking the wall made a wonderful afternoon primarily because of the history you shared. Really, there were MANY things in your papers that I appreciated. I can't imagine walking the wall without those tips. Thank you again!
Geoff Gould, El Dorado Hills, California USA, June 2002
"I'd like to thank you for your wonderful web site. I discovered it last year while preparing to visit Chester. I actually printed up your guide to the walk around the wall and brought it with me! I am looking forward to revisiting Chester- and spending more time there- with my wife and son at the end of July. Thank you again for your efforts on behalf of your beautiful city and thank you for your wonderful, informative web site!"
John Schulze, San Antonio, Texas USA 6th June 2000
"Your website is wonderful. I have used it to answer various questions and just for interesting facts about the city. I and my colleagues have found it invaluable, very well organised and very easy to find information on it".
Chester Reference Library, Northgate Street Chester, May 2007
"An absolutely brilliant site about Chester and a sterling almost single-handed effort. Well deserving of funding (cos this is the sort of thing that attracts tourists, business etc)"
Review on the (sadly now defunct) Chester Wiki
"This virtual strolling tour around the walls is beautifully photographed, the narration is detailed and interesting, and it doesn't shy away from some of Chester's darker sides. You will be hard pressed to find a more informative, or enjoyable, guide to the city and it's history."
Review on Chester City Council's 'Chester Portal'
"I remember going onto your website a long time ago and being impressed then, but this is quite something else!! WOW!!! I can’t wait to see your shop. Very cool".
An Cronin, Hoole, February 2012
Read what other visitors have had to say- some of our most recent letters are here... |
The Chester Virtual Stroll now has its own Facebook page!
The above is a 'contents' page