A
Virtual
Stroll
Around
the
Walls
of
Chester
'Tis true: There's magic in the web of it
Othello: act III scene IV
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Chester, Cheshire & North Wales Links part I (on
to
part
2)
Updated May 2009
• 'Chester:
A
Virtual
Stroll
Around
the
Walls'.
An
informal-
but
very
informative-
guided
walk
around
the
most
complete
circuit
of
Roman
&
medieval
city
walls
in
the
UK.
In
over
fifty
illustrated
chapters,
the
author
accompanies
us
around
the
two-mile
circuit,
shows
us
the
sights,
tells
of
the
great
events
that
have
taken
place
during
the
past
two
thousand
years
and
occasionally contributes his two penn'orth regarding
contemporary
developments
in and around
the
city.
Lots
of
fascinating
information
and
picture
galleries
here,
much
of
it
not
easily
available
elsewhere
and
new
material
is
added
(almost)
daily.
Quite simply, the finest online guide to the City of Chester- now
with
a
comprehensive
index!
• Show the world you're proud to be in business in Chester and help to support this website- advertise! Entering 'Chester City Walls' or suchlike into Google shows the site is number one- surely the best place to advertise your business!
• From
Lucian
the
Monk
to
Graham Norton: the
fascinating
observations
of
over
800
years
of visitors
to
Chester-
and
also
well over a decade
of visitors
to
these
webpages!
• An
illustrated
list
of
some
of
the
many Chester
pubs which
have
vanished
over the years,
and
the
reminiscences
of
a
'frequenter'
of
one
of
the
most
remarkable,
the King's
Arm's
Kitchen. Your
reminisciences, corrections and contributions
to
this
page
are
particularly
welcome!
• A
growing
collection
of old
maps
and
aerial
photographs of
Chester- and also a Victorian view of the city from a balloon!
• Explore
a
disused
railway
line
running
from
rural
Cheshire,
through
the
city
of
Chester
and
on
into
North
Wales-
since
June
2000,
the
location
of
a
superb
new
SUSTRANS
cycletrack-
but which for years was
threatened
by
a
madcap
council
plan
to
put
buses on
it.
Join
us
for
A
Virtual
Stroll
Along
the
Millennium Greenway -
and
read
a
collection
of
reader's
letters
for
and-
very
much
in
the
majority!-
against
the
hair-brained
CDTS
busway.
Update December 2008: The author of the above feels that the time is long overdue for this version of the virtual journey along the Millennium Greenway- largely dealing as it does with the bitter, years-long battle to preserve our car-free path from the iniquities of the CDTS 'Guided Busway'- to be gracefully retired into the archives and a complete re-write to take place. This would add all of the new photographs and other material that this writer has been thigh-deep in for the last few years, tell of the very welcome extension of the route to Guilden Sutton that is about to take place, add better access information and detailed maps, provide a guide to hotels, shops, pubs, cafes etc close to the path- and generally provide a much, much more positive, regularly-updated read. He is, however, now financially incapable of undertaking the task and is appealing for advertisers, sponsors and donors to come forward to assist him with the task. Visit the site for details...
A superb new site featuring galleries of beautiful images of our city and much more: Chester- a portrait.
• What happened today in Chester and district? Read the Chester Evening Leader online every evening!
• A newspaper that's been around for over 200 years is now online- the Chester Chronicle (an anagram of which is- some would say aptly- 'It corners the cliche') In September 2001, the Chron's website got a silly new 'techie' name and URL: icCheshireOnline.com- and a fairly characterless, corporate look to boot. The site is now described as being "in association" with the Chronicle.
• At the excellent Chester @ Large website you'll find witty and honest reviews of Chester's pubs and restaurants together with a lively discussion forum. Had a great pint or an awful meal in Chester? Now you can let everyone know! Good stuff indeed.
• An excellent site that offers spectacular panoramic images of Chester and much else: Chester 360°. You've never seen our city look like this before!
• Launched in March 2007, a splendid new addition to Chester cyberspace where everyone is welcome to contribute- add your two penn'orth to the Chester Wiki
• Blast from the Past: 'Don't Forget the Walls' was a campaigning website launched by the Chester Conservatives in January 2007 in response to the row that has resulted due to the appalling state our precious city walls have been allowed to get into of recent times due to the indifference of local political philistines and cheapskates. However, by the summer of 2007, the supposedly non-political dontforgethtewalls.com had become absorbed by the website of the Chester Conservatives.
• The
website
of
the
Chester
Cycling
Campaign- now with their own domain: www.chestercycling.co.uk. News
of
Chester's
slowly
improving
cycling
scene,
a
bewildering
array
of
worldwide
cycling
links
and
much
more...
Be sure to visit the latest excellent source of local cycling news, full of fascinating information: Chester Cycle City
• Blast from the Past: The
Chester
Information
Network
was
launched
in
a
blaze
of
local
media
coverage
in
March
1997:
"We
are
developing
a
major
programme
to
give
all
our
residents
and
visitors
training
and
access
to
public
terminals
making
Chester
one
of
the
more
technically
advanced
cities
in
the
world", enthused Chester City Council Leader John Price.
Pretty soon, however,
it
all
seemed
to
have
ground
to
a
halt. The
supposedly
prestigious
website
lacked
sparkle
and
showed
next to no
sign
of
regular
maintainance. (Mind
you,
for
some
reason
the
BBC
seemed
to
be
impressed
with
CIN,
as
in
October
1998
they
linked
it
to
the
Regions
of
Britain
section
of
their
website,
where
it
was
reviewed
as
"modern
looking"
and
"containing
a
large
amount
of
relevant
links
about
the
walled
city
on
the
banks
of
the
River
Dee". Interestingly, that particular bit of the beeb no longer exists...)
To anyone attempting to revisit CIN, it soon became evident that the entire shambles had been quietly (not a dickey bird in the local press etc) laid to rest- the link now taking the visitor to a second- and more promising- attempt: 'The Chester Portal'.
But then, in early 2007, this notice appeared on the Portal's front page (the dodgy spelling is theirs): "The Chester Portal was a project that ran successfully for a number of years. However the project has unfortunately run it's course and we are now unable to continue to maintain and update the site as much as was once possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this may course".
• The Chester
City
Council website
(but see note about the new council below) All manner
of
useful
information
about local services may be found here, including the Millennium Heritage Trail which aspires to "take the visitor around fourty of our city's finest buildings"- but unfortunately supplies no more than a sentence of information about each- and no photographs, merely illustrations of the heritage trail plaques that adorn them.
Virtual Chester ("supported by the Big Lottery Fund") - a triumph of clever dick design that doubtless cost a bomb ("tens of thousands of pounds" according to a helpful council official in a recent conversation) but nontheless remains deeply disappointing in the sparseness of the information about our endlessly fascinating city that it actually contains. It's also annoyingly platform-dependent; if, like us and thousands of others, you access the internet with a Macintosh computer, forget it as the plugin you need- the 'Cortona VRML browser'- to view the 'virtual' elements of the site, simply won't work. We did, however, enjoy the fine collection of historic images housed on the site but noticed quite a number of inaccuracies in the descriptive sections we visited.
A local web design company- who shall remain nameless- during the course of a recent telephone sales pitch, cited Virtual Chester as "exemplary of how online city guides should be on today's internet". (unlike our own, which they described as "in serious need of a makeover").
• In December 2005, the local press drew our attention to a prestigious new feature on the council's tourism website: the City Walls Trail. Divided into several sections, the tour offers the visitor a package of amateur photography and the usual basic information that everyone's heard before.
In Spring 2009, a major local government reorganisation resulted in the extinction of both Chester City Council and Cheshire County Council and the creation of the new Cheshire West and Chester Council. Their new website is just getting organised but contains all the useful information formerly hosted by those of the old councils.
• Book accomodation in Chester, find out what's on and much more- "the official guide to tourism in Chester"- visitchester.com
• Wildly garish and confusing in its layout and organisation, this independent guide to our fair city is nontheless worth visiting: Chester Tourist.com.
• Be sure to visit the excellent website of the Upton-by-Chester Local History Group
• An interesting new website written by and for the residents of the Newtown district of Chester- be sure to visit the NewTownSaints
• Here is the Lache Park Community Website
• Business advice, networking and much more: the Chester, Ellsmere Port and North Wales Chamber of Trade and Commerce website
• A fascinating collection of the finest Chester blogs can be found at The Deva Station. Its editor writes, "Welcome to what I hope will offer a comprehensive home for all the Chester blogs. I'll be using the Deva Station to explore our city's finest blogs, list them on the links and- hopefully, one day before too long- create the first Chester Blog Awards".
• Somewhere we wished we had more time to visit in the flesh: the excellent and growing website of the Cheshire and Chester Record Office
• The websites
of Chester University
and West Cheshire College. The outstanding Chester
UK weather at West Cheshire College site (including live satellite
images) in July 1999 won the Becta / Guardian UK School and College Web
Site Award.
•
Queen's
Park
High
School.
An
entertaining
and
informative
site
from
this
Chester
school. We wish more local schools did it as well...
• An online visit to the world-famous
Chester
Zoo
• A city council website outlining their slant on a proposed- extremely controversial- major new city centre redevelopment: the Northgate Development Home Page. Also here and here. For some alternative views on the subject, here is Seranus' (far from finished) version.
December 2008: It now looks increasingly unlikely that the scheme is going to happen but watch this space...
• A detailed guide to the goods and services available at the splendid- but currently, thanks to the aforementioned redevelopment, very threatened- Chester Market.
• The Countess
of
Chester
Hospital's
website. Spartan but useful- details
of
hospital
services
and
a
few
local
links. Also, here is a fascinating and extensive website we've just discovered while 
mooching through Google: an illustrated history of the hospitals in and around Chester, written as part of the NHS's 50th anniversary celebrations. Tons of pictures and info. It's nice to say, for once, that here's a local site that's comprehensive, interesting, entertaining and well constructed. Hope it lasts.
• Situated by the Shropshire Union Canal at Tower Wharf is Chester's
foremost
live
music
venue (not that there's many, mind)-
and
our
home
from
home-
the
magnificent Telford's
Warehouse
• Another (the other?) fine
live
music
venue, located
in
Rufus
Court,
off
Northgate
Street:
Alexander's
Jazz
Bar
• The Chester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chester Music Society
• "Chester's best kept secret": what's on at the Chester Film Society
• More Chesters! Away across the Atlantic Ocean are...
| Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada, | Chester, Massachusetts ("Gem of the Valley") |
| Chester, Connecticut, USA, | Chester, Vermont USA |
| West Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA, | Chester, West Virginia, USA - 'Home of the world's biggest teapot'. Weird but true... |
| Chester County, Tennessee, USA and here | Chester, California USA also here and here |
| Chester, Utah, USA | Chester, Illinois USA and here- home of Popeye the Sailor Man! |
| Chester, Idaho, USA | Chester, Maryland USA |
| Chester, South Carolina, USA | Chester, New York USA |
| Chester, Montana, USA | Chester, New Hampshire USA |
| Chester, Nebraska, USA | Chester, Pennsylvania USA and, much better, here (thanks to Mike Kalichak) |
| Chester, Iowa, USA | Mount Chester and Chester Lake in Canada's beautiful Rockie Mountains |
| Chester Township, New Jersey also here | Chester College in- of all places- Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Do you live in any of the above and can recommend good local web guides (some of the above, in common with local authority sites everywhere, are pretty dull to say the least)- or know of other Chesters anywhere in the world? (somewhere other than the USA would be nice for a change)
• Chester's (former) twin towns: Sens in Burgundy, France- and, as of February 2001, Senigallia in Italy (also here). In Spring 2009, the newly-reorganised Chester West and Chester Council decided that twinning, introduced into Europe after WW2, had become merely an opportunity for free holidays for councillors and did away with the practise.
• Simply masses of detailed historical information- and highly recommended- British History Online's Chester pages
• Established in Chester since 1990, The Black & White Picture Place offers the finest in photography: quality handprinting & processing / photographic renovation & repair / scanning & digital editing / graphic & webpage design / commercial / industrial, PR, archaeological / weddings, portraits & special occasions / gallery: huge selection of handmade photographs of Chester, Liverpool, people and many other subjects / Tuition to all levels: photography, handprinting & processing, Apple Macintosh, Photoshop, etc / Chester photographic and historical guided walks and much more...
Telephone: 01244 345099 Mobile: 0775 1521 600 email: knowhowe@bwpics.co.uk
Now
go
on
to
part
II
of
our
Chester,
Cheshire
and
North
Wales
links...
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