page_title: Chester city walls
section_title: Military use
hierarchical_section_title: Chester city walls / History / Military use
caption_attribution_description: English: Chester's City Walls - Bridgegate to Eastgate #10 Viewed from where Duke Street, out of sight on the left, meets Park Street, which runs alongside the city walls. At this point there is a flight of steps, and also a ramp that allows access to the walls for wheelchair users. Any wheelchair users who continue along the walls to the Newgate, will have to return to this point to regain pavement level.
context_page_description: Chester city walls consist of a defensive structure built to protect the city of Chester in Cheshire, England. Their construction was started by the Romans when they established the fortress of Deva Victrix between 70 and 80 AD. It originated with a rampart of earth and turf surmounted by a wooden palisade. From about 100 AD they were reconstructed using sandstone, but were not completed until over 100 years later. Following the Roman occupation nothing is known about the condition of the walls until Æthelflæd refounded Chester as a burgh in 907. The defences were improved, although the precise nature of the improvement is not known. After the Norman conquest, the walls were extended to the west and the south to form a complete circuit of the medieval city. The circuit was probably complete by the middle of the 12th century.
  Maintenance of the structure of the walls was an ongoing concern. They were further fortified before the Civil War, and were damaged during the war. Following this they ceased to have a defensive purpose, and were developed for leisure and recreation.
context_section_description: In about 74 or 75 AD the Roman legion Legio II Adiutrix established a fortress in Chester. The fortress was initially defended by an earth rampart surmounted by a wooden palisade and surrounded by a ditch with a sharp V-shaped profile. It is likely that the rampart was about 3 m (10 ft) high on a base of about 6 m (20 ft).  The earth for the rampart was obtained from digging the ditch.  It was set on a base of logs and held together by branches and brushwood.  At intervals of about 160 m (520 ft) along the ramparts were wooden towers with a square base of about 4.5 m (15 ft); they were probably about 7.5 m (25 ft) high. On each of the four sides was a main gate with timber towers.  The gates on the north and east sides stood on the present sites of Northgate and Eastgate. From about 90 AD Chester was occupied by Legio XX Valeria Victrix, who started a programme of rebuilding, including the improvement of the walls.  Starting in about 100 AD the earth walls were reconstructed using sandstone. A wall of stone was added to the earth rampart.  This consisted of large square blocks of stone built on a chamfered plinth up to a walkway about 4.9 m (16 ft) above the base.  It was surmounted by an elaborately carved cornice, and a parapet topped by capstones. The gates and towers were also rebuilt in stone. It is thought that the north gate was a single arch, while the others had twin portals.  The east gate formed the main entry to the fortress, and was particularly impressive, possibly with three storeys. The stone was quarried locally from the immediate area of the fortress. Although started in about 100 AD, the rebuilding of the walls was abandoned in the early part of the 2nd century, perhaps with the walls incomplete, and was not finished until over 100 years later. The walls continued to be maintained throughout the Roman occupation, with major repairs undertaken during the 4th century.
  Nothing is known about the condition of the walls between the end of the Roman occupation in the late 4th century and the refounding of Chester by Æthelflæd as a burgh in 907 as part of the reconquest of Mercia by the Anglo-Saxons.  Parts of the Roman walls were still present, as they continue to stand today. The Anglo-Saxons certainly repaired the northern and eastern sections of the Roman walls.  At some time Roman stones, including tombstones, were used in repairs, but it uncertain whether this was during this period or later.  There is evidence, including the discovery of a Saxon U-shaped ditch, that the wall was extended from the southeast corner of the Roman wall to the river, forming an L-shaped defence, but whether this would have been a stone or an earth defence is unknown. There is a reference to repairing the walls in the Domesday Survey. Following the Norman conquest the army of William the Conqueror arrived in Chester in 1069–70, and the king ordered that a castle should be built.  This was constructed outside the site of the Roman fortress, to the southwest in an elevated position overlooking the River Dee. This necessitated the extension of the walls to the west and south to incorporate the castle, leading to the circuit of the walls currently present.  Three new gates were built, the Watergate in the west wall, and the Shipgate and Bridgegate.  The latter two gates were certainly built by the 1120s, and it is thought that the medieval circuit of the walls was complete by 1162.  They then consisted of the curtain wall itself, gates, towers and a ditch. The Saxon ditch has been filled in, and the medieval ditches were dug further from the walls.  The earlier ditch had been shallow, probably no more than 1 m (3 ft) deep.  However, following a siege of Chester Castle during the Second Barons' War in 1265, a larger ditch was dug, this one being over 2 m (6 ft) deep.
  The finance required for the upkeep of the walls was mainly by a series of murages granted by the king, duties levied on merchandise passing into and out of the city.  The main gates were under the control of hereditary sergeants who collected tolls and organised watc
caption: The south east section of the medieval walls by Barnaby's Tower.
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