A
Virtual
Stroll
Around
the
Walls
of
Chester
'Tis true: There's magic in the web of it
Othello: act III scene IV
Chester Links part II | Liverpool Links | History & Archaeology Links | Photography Links
Apple
Mac & Internet
Links |
Environmental
Links
|
Genealogy
Links
|
Miscellaneous
Links
Chester,
Cheshire
&
North
Wales
Links
part
I- on
to
part
II
Possibly
the
most
comprehensive local
listing
on
the
web!
New links added 20th November 2007
• 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!
• We have recently launched a mirror of the above (and designed to eventually replace it) with a somewhat snappier URL: www.chesterwalls.info
• Share your products and services with the world and help to support this website- advertise on the Chester Virtual Stroll!
• From
Lucian
the
Monk
to
Graham Norton: the
fascinating
observations
of
over
800
years
of Visitors
to
Chester-
and
also
a
few
years
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
regular
of
one
of
the
most
remarkable
of
these,
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.
• 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
Mickle
Trafford
Railway-
and
read
a
collection
of
reader's
letters
for
and-
very
much
in
the
majority!-
against
the
hair-brained
CDTS
busway....
January 2005: The site's author apologises for the lack of recent updates. Especially so as it looks as if CDTS is, unbelievably, back on the agenda, at least as far as certain councillors and business interests are concerned. In 2007, self-interested developers added to our problems...
• What happened today in Chester and district? Read the Chester Evening Leader online every evening! We very much liked the ease of navigation and of 'feedback' to the editorial team the site allows (other local papers take note!). It also provides links to other newspapers in the group covering most of North Wales and the Borders. A good way to keep in touch, wherever you are in the world...
• 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.
• In complete contrast, at the excellent Chester @ Large website, run by Ian and Tracy Burns, you'll find witty and honest reviews of Chester's pubs and restaurants. A most entertaining and useful (remember that?) website that's doubtless contributed much to improving standards in Chester's eating and drinking establishments- and your submissions are welcome. Ideally, we'd like to see some reviews of places out of the city centre too (so perhaps we should write them?) Good stuff indeed.
Talking of local food and drink, here are the newly-published Scores on the Doors findings for hygiene and cleanliness in Chester's restaurants, cafes and pubs. Fascinating- and often worrying- stuff...
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 was a brilliant new addition to Chester cyberspace where everyone is welcome to contribute- add your two penn'orth to the Chester Wiki
• Don't Forget the Walls- 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 trransformed into the website of the Chester Conservatives.
• The
excellent
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...
• 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
is
reviewed
as
"modern
looking"
and
"containing
a
large
amount
of
relevant
links
about
the
walled
city
on
the
banks
of
the
River
Dee".
So
what
would
we
know?)
But soon, to anyone attempting to revisit CIN, it 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 (dodgy spelling included): "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".
Dear oh dear. What's next we wonder?
• Chester
City
Council
Home
Page
Lots
of
useful
information
here-
the
site
is
now
very
much
improved
thanks
to
the
attentions
of
a
new
webmaster.
That
said,
once
one
has
penetrated
the
bright
new
facade,
much
of
the
old
site
remains
the
same-
but
there's
lots
to
do
and
we're
sure
this
will
change
with
time.
The newly-launched 'virtual' version of the council's much-vaunted Millennium Heritage Trail- sadly, another typical city council cyber-product: it may aspire 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 ... Not really worth the bother.
And then there's the latest incarnation of the council's web presence: 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.
If, like us and thousands of others, you access the internet with Safari, Mac OS X's excellent web browser, forget it as the plugin you need to download to view the 'virtual' elements of the site simply won't work.
We did enjoy the fine collection of historic images housed on the site but were mystified why exactly the same descriptive text appeared beneath every image in a given category. In addition, a great number of the links to images also didn't work either and we noticed quite a number of inaccuracies in the descriptive sections we visited.
A local web design company recently 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"). Hmm. We leave it to out readers to decide about that but believe that we'll be sticking with good ol' fangled real information / opinion / entertainment together with design simplicity, ta very much- where our visitors get to see and read what's there without having to use the 'right' browser or download third-party plugins first.
And, like all decent websites, you can write to us to comment / contribute / correct us / slag us off - and always get a reply, even your letter published. We couldn't find any email adresses or other links to those responsible for Virtual Chester.
And what possessed Chester City Council to farm out the task of writing a website about their own city to the University of Salford of all places?
In December 2005, the local press drew our attention to a prestigious new feature on the council's tourism website: a Tour of Chester's City Walls. Divided into several sections, the tour offers the visitor a package of amateur photography and the usual basic information that everyone's heard before.
• Cheshire
County
Council
Home
Page
More
functional
than
entertaining,
unsurprisingly, but the
site
is efficient and offers
many
useful
links
to
County
Council
services,
news
of
road
closures
and
the
like.
As
with
the
City
Council
website
above,
there
is
a useful
list
of
County
councillors
and
their
email
contacts.
• A comprehensive and well-written independent guide to our fair city: Chester Tourist.com
An interesting new website written by and for the residents of the Newtown district of Chester- be sure to visit the NewTownSaints
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...
• Details
of
events
(before the money men knock it down next year) at
the
Chester Gateway
Theatre - and
also
at
Chester
Zoo
• A city council website outlining their slant on a proposed- extremely controversial- major new city centre redevelopment: the Northgate Development Home Page. For some alternative views on the subject, here is Seranus' (far from finished) version...
• 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.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
Theatre
• The Chester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chester Music Society
• "Chester's best kept secret" (so they say): what's on at the Chester Film Society
• More Chesters! Away across the Atlantic Ocean are...
| Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada, | Chester, Massachusetts |
| 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 | |
| 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 twin towns: Sens in Burgundy, France- and, as of February 2001, Senigallia in Italy (also here)
• Simply masses of detailed historical information at 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...
 |
|
Help keep the Chester Virtual Stroll growing and up-to-date. DONATE! |
