A Virtual Stroll Around the Walls of Chester

• 1900 New swimming baths, designed by John Douglas, opened in Union Street. Commonweath of Australia created. Oscar Wilde died.
• 1901 Queen Victoria died after a reign of 64 years and was succeeded by her son Edward VII (1841-1910).
• 1909 First cinema, the Picturedrome, opens in Eastgate Street, Chester.
• 1903 Statue of Queen Victoria erected at the Castle. Chateau-style houses in Bath Street erected, designed by Douglas and Minshull. Electric trams introduced in Chester. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody's Wild West Show, featuring Annie Oakley, appeared at the Roodee. First powered flight by the Wright Brothers.
• 1910 St. Michael's Row, Bridge Street, designed by W J Lockwood, built. The original ceramic tiled-frontage was not approved of by the 2nd Duke of Westminster and was replaced with the black and white timber front we know today. The splendid ornate tiling survives within however. The Dee Mills on the Old Dee Bridge suffered the last of many fires and were demolished. King Edward VII died and was succeeded by George V (1865-1936).
• 1911 The fire station in Northgate Street built at a cost of £3,000.
• 1913 The bandstand on the Groves is built at a cost of £350. Hydro-electric power first produced at a new generating station built on the site of the Dee Mills. Became a water pumping station in 1951.
• 1914-18 First World War. 1917 The Dee was frozen enough for skaters (also in 1929, 1947 and 1963).
• 1921 The Music Hall in St. Werburgh Street becomes the oldest building in the world to be used as a cinema. The world's first 'talkie', Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, was shown here in 1927. The war memorial at the Castle was erected. Chester butchers object to the use of humane killer. There was a mass meeting of the unemployed on the Roodee. Population of Chester: 40,802.
• 1923 Queen's Park Suspension Bridge at the Groves is rebuilt by David Rowell and Co. Louise Rayner, ever-popular painter of Chester scenes, dies in Sussex. (see our gallery of her Chester paintings here).
• 1929 Stanley Palace, Watergate Street, given to the city by the Earl of Derby and The Meadows given to the city by the mayor, Harry Brown. The Chester Amphitheatre is discovered by W J 'Walrus' Williams. Empire State Building started.
• 1930 Chester's trams cease operation and are replaced by buses.
• 1931 Stone steps linking the Kaleyards to the city wall erected at the cost of £288. Chester Zoo is opened by George Mottershead and his family.
• 1935 Harry Weedon's Odeon Cinema, Northgate Street, opens. (despite great opposition, closes in June 2006 and sold to a nightclub company. Remains still scandalously closed in May 2009).
• 1936 King George V dies and is succeeded by his son, Edward VIII (1894-1972). Edward abdicates after 325 days, becoming Duke of Windsor, and is succeeded by his brother George VI (1895-1952).
• 1938 The Newgate rebuilt. Western Command HQ built on the riverside in Handbridge- now the local HQ of the Halifax Bank of Scotland. Chester's first Lady Mayor, Mrs Phyllis Brown.
• 
  1939-45 Second World War. Chester did not suffer from large scale bombing but there were some attacks and there were bomb shelters at the Blossoms, St. Michael's Row, the crypt of St. John's Church and the basements of Oddfellow's Hall in Bridge Street.
• 1940 Chester's first war casualty: Fireman Cyril Dutton killed by falling timbers in Foregate Street during Nov 20th air raid. Of the five civilian casualties in the city, two were firemen.
• 1944 The Greenwood redevelopment plan for Chester, which, among other things, proposed a new inner ringroad to relieve traffic in the city centre, a complex of civic buildings and concert hall to be erected behind the Town Hall, a doubling of the size of Grosvenor Park and a complete excavation of the Chester Amphitheatre as illustrated above. A different version of the ringroad was eventually built in the 1960s but none of the other proposals were achieved.
• 1945 Nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On VJ night, a sewer in Bridge Street collapses and a plague of rats seen heading for the River Dee.
• 1948 Charles, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, born.
• 1949 The Bluecoat School outside the Northgate closes.
• 1951 The Chester Mystery Plays are performed after a break of nearly four centuries.
• 1952 King George VI dies and his daughter Elizabeth II (born 1926) comes to the throne.
• 1957 Cafe occupying the 13th century Falcon Inn closed and the building stayed empty for a year until occupied by a textile wholesaler- which in turn closed in 1971. From around 1882-1935 the Falcon was known as 'The Chester Cocoa House'.
• 1963 President John F Kennedy assasinated.
• 1961 The cinema in the 13th century Chapel of St. Nicolas closed and became the first supermarket within the city walls. Population of Chester 58,950.
• 1964 Grenfell Baines redevelopment plan for Chester. Building of County Police Headquarters started.
• 1966 First section of the Inner Ringroad completed.
• 1967 Chester Indoor Market, complete with its unique and much-missed facade, closed and demolished.
• 1968 Chester Gateway Theatre opened. Controversially closed ahead of the Northgate Redevelopment plans in January 2007.
• 1969 The Northgate Brewery closed and demolished. Northgate Railway Station closed.
• 1971 St. Anne Street Fire Station opens.
• 1972 The Church of England reorganises parishes resulting in three city churches, St. Michael's, St. Mary's-on-the-Hill and St. Olave's becoming redundant. The Inner Ringroad completed. The Cross closed to traffic and pedestrianised.
• 1973 First Blue Plaque erected by the council. Charles, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester given the freedom of the city.
• 1974 New City Council established under local government reorganisation. The Addleshaw Tower built next to the Cathedral: the first campanile, or free-standing bell tower, erected since the Middle Ages.
• 1975 European Conservation Year. St. Michael's Church re-opened as UK's first 'Heritage Centre' (now the home of the excellent 'Chester History & Heritage'). St. Mary's is bought by Cheshire County Council to become an education centre. The High Cross restored and re-erected at its ancient location before St. Peter's Church.
• 1979 Chester celebrates its 1,900th annivarsary. The King's Arms Kitchen at the Eastgate closes after 200 years.
• 1984 Chester Library built in the old Westminster Motor Works in Market Square.
• 1985 King's Buildings finally restored after twenty years of being shored up. The County Stand at Chester Racecourse on the Roodee destroyed by fire.
• 1991 Rufus Court built. Black & White Picture Place established there the same year. Queen makes Mrs Sue Proctor Chester's first Lord Mayor. Statue by Stephen Broadbent, A Celebration of Chester (illustrated above), erected in Market Square.
• 1995 Rebuilding of the Forum completed by Scottish Widows.
• 1996 Ravens return, after an absence of centuries, to nest on the tower of Chester Town Hall. The following year, they nested on the Cathedal tower and have continued to return each year since then. They are the UK's only known town-nesting ravens.
• 1997 New nave floor laid in Cathedral. Death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the last Countess of Chester. Christine Russell defeats Gyles Brandreth to become elected as the first female and the first Labour MP for the city.
• 1998 Much-criticised row of flagpoles erected outside Town Hall. Eastgate Street repaved and canal towpath restored. Extensions to the Chester Royal Infirmary demolished and archaeological dig reveals medieval road and oldest pipe kiln yet found. Both destroyed by developers. Old Port redevelopment gets under way.
• 1999 The Chester Archaeological Society celebrated its 150th anniversary.
• 2000 Public Inquiry held into the controversial CDTS guided busway proposals. (which, in the face of economics and public opposition, have now been formally abandoned). County courthouse, offices and car park erected on the Chester Amphitheatre.
• 2001 June. Christine Russell re-elected as MP for Chester. June. Odeon Cinema, Northgate Street- Chester's last city centre cinema- closes, despite great opposition, and sold to a nightclub company. Remains, scandalously, closed in June 2009. July. Major redevelopment proposals for the Town Hall and Northgate area announced. 11th September- The Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York are destroyed.
• 2006 County Police Headquarters demolished and its replacement, 'HQ' commenced.
• 2007/8 Considerable demolition takes place in preparation for Northgate redevelopment. Scheme put on indefinite hold due to economic climate.
• 2008 Long-awaited extension of the Millennium Greenway to Mickle Trafford agreed and commenced. Barack Obama becomes 44th President of the USA.
• 2009 Major changes in local government result in the extinction of Chester City Council and Cheshire County Council and the creation of the new Cheshire West and Chester Council. MPs expenses scandal erupts.
  
  

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