TravelTill

About Chester


JuteVilla
laid out at this time – almost 2,000 years ago. One of the three main Roman army camps, Deva later became a major settlement in the Roman province of Britannia. The Roman Empire fell three hundred years later, and the Romano-British established a number of petty kingdoms in its place. Chester is thought to have been part of Powys at this time. King Arthur is said to have fought his ninth battle at the city of the legions and later St Augustine came to the city to try and unite the church and hold his synod with the Welsh Bishops. In 616, Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeated a Welsh army at the Battle of Chester and probably established the Anglo-Saxon position in the area from then on.

In the late 7th century, (AD 689) King Æthelred of Mercia founded the Minster Church of West Mercia on what is considered to be an early Christian Site and known as The Minster of St John the Baptist, Chester (now St John's Church) which later became the first cathedral. Much later the body of Æthelred's Niece, St Werburgh was removed from Hanbury in Staffordshire in the 9th century and, in order to save its desecration by Danish marauders, she was reburied in the Church of SS Peter & Paul - later to become the Abbey Church (the present cathedral). Her name is still remembered in St Werburgh's Street which passes alongside the cathedral, and near to the city walls. A new Church dedicated to St Peter alone was founded in AD907 by the Lady Æthelfleda at what was to become the Cross

The Saxons extended and strengthened the walls of Chester to protect the city against the Danes, who occupied it for a short time until Alfred seized all the cattle and laid waste the surrounding land to drive them out. In fact it was Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, that built the new Saxon burh. The Anglo-Saxons called Chester Ceaster or Legeceaster.

In 973, the Anglo Saxon

JuteVilla