Vanishing England. P. H. Ditchfield

form in order to secure more accommodation within. The remains of the Clifford's Tower, which played an important part in the siege, tell of the destruction caused by the blowing up of the magazine in 1683, an event which had more the appearance of design than accident. York abounds with quaint houses and narrow streets. We give an illustration of the curious Melia's Passage; the origin of the name I am at a loss to conjecture.

      Chester is, we believe, the only city in England which has retained the entire circuit of its walls complete. According to old unreliable legends, Marius, or Marcius, King of the British, grandson of Cymbeline, who began his reign A.D. 73, first surrounded Chester with a wall, a mysterious person who must be classed with Leon Gawr, or Vawr, a mighty strong giant who founded Chester, digging caverns in the rocks for habitations, and with the story of King Leir, who first made human habitations in the future city. Possibly there was here a British camp. It was certainly a Roman city, and has preserved the form and plan which the Romans were accustomed to affect; its four principal streets diverging at right angles from a common centre, and extending north, east, south, and west, and terminating in a gate, the other streets forming insulæ as at Silchester. There is every reason to believe that the Romans surrounded the city with a wall. Its strength was often tried. Hither the Saxons came under Ethelfrith and pillaged the city, but left it to the Britons, who were not again dislodged until Egbert came in 828 and recovered it. The Danish pirates came here and were besieged by Alfred, who slew all within its walls. These walls were standing but ruinous when the noble daughter of Alfred, Ethelfleda, restored them in 907. A volume would be needed to give a full account of Chester's varied history, and our main concern is with the treasures that remain. The circumference of the walls is nearly two miles, and there are four principal gates besides posterns—the North, East, Bridge-gate, and Water-gate. The North Gate was in the charge of the citizens; the others were held by persons who had that office by serjeanty under the Earls of Chester, and were entitled to certain tolls, which, with the custody of the gates, were frequently purchased by the Corporation. The custody of the Bridge-gate belonged to the Raby family in the reign of Edward III. It had two round towers, on the westernmost of which was an octagonal water-tower. These were all taken down in 1710–81 and the gate rebuilt. The East Gate was given by Edward I to Henry Bradford, who was bound to find a crannoc and a bushel for measuring the salt that might be brought in. Needless to say, the old gate has vanished. It was of Roman architecture, and consisted of two arches formed by large stones. Between the tops of the arches, which were cased with Norman masonry, was the whole-length figure of a Roman soldier. This gate was a porta principalis, the termination of the great Watling Street that led from Dover through London to Chester. It was destroyed in 1768, and the present gate erected by Earl Grosvenor. The custody of the Water-gate belonged to the Earls of Derby. It also was destroyed, and the present arch erected in 1788. A new North Gate was built in 1809 by Robert, Earl Grosvenor. The principal postern-gates were Cale Yard Gate, made by the abbot and convent in the reign of Edward I as a passage to their kitchen garden; New-gate, formerly Woolfield or Wolf-gate, repaired in 1608, also called Pepper-gate;⁷ and Ship-gate, or Hole-in-the-wall, which alone retains its Roman arch, and leads to a ferry across the Dee.

      The walls are strengthened by round towers so placed as not to be beyond bowshot of each other, in order that their arrows might reach the enemy who should attempt to scale the walls in the intervals. At the north-east corner is Newton's Tower, better known as the Phoenix from a sculptured figure, the ensign of one of the city guilds, appearing over its door. From this tower Charles I saw the battle of Rowton Heath and the defeat of his troops during the famous siege of Chester. This was one of the most prolonged and deadly in the whole history of the Civil War. It would take many pages to describe the varied fortunes of the gallant Chester men, who were at length constrained to feed on horses, dogs, and cats. There is much in the city to delight the antiquary and the artist—the famous rows, the three-gabled old timber mansion of the Stanleys with its massive staircase, oaken floors, and panelled walls, built in 1591, Bishop Lloyd's house in Water-gate with its timber front sculptured with Scripture subjects, and God's Providence House with its motto "God's Providence is mine inheritance," the inhabitants of which are said to have escaped one of the terrible plagues that used to rage frequently in old Chester.

       Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street, Shrewsbury

      Journeying southwards we come to Shrewsbury, another walled town, abounding with delightful half-timbered houses, less spoiled than any town we know. It was never a Roman town, though six miles away, at Uriconium, the Romans had a flourishing city with a great basilica, baths, shops, and villas, and the usual accessories of luxury. Tradition says that its earliest Celtic name was Pengwern, where a British prince had his palace; but the town Scrobbesbyrig came into existence under Offa's rule in Mercia, and with the Normans came Roger de Montgomery, Shrewsbury's first Earl, and a castle and the stately abbey of SS. Peter and Paul. A little later the town took to itself walls, which were abundantly necessary on account of the constant inroads of the wild Welsh.

      For the barbican's massy and high,

       Bloudie Jacke! And the oak-door is heavy and brown;

       And with iron it's plated and machicolated,

       To pour boiling oil and lead down;

       How you'd frown Should a ladle-full fall on your crown!

      The rock that it stands on is steep,

       Bloudie Jacke! To gain it one's forced for to creep;

       The Portcullis is strong, and the Drawbridge is long,

       And the water runs all round the Keep;

       At a peep You can see that the moat's very deep!

      So rhymed the author of the Ingoldsby Legends, when in his "Legend of Shropshire" he described the red stone fortress that towers over the loop of the Severn enclosing the picturesque old town of Shrewsbury. The castle, or rather its keep, for the outworks have disappeared, has been modernized past antiquarian value now. Memories of its importance as the key of the Northern Marches, and of the ancient custom of girding the knights of the shire with their swords by the sheriffs on the grass plot of its inner court, still remain. The town now stands on a peninsula girt by the Severn. On the high ground between the narrow neck stood the castle, and under its shelter most of the houses of the inhabitants. Around this was erected the first wall. The latest historian of Shrewsbury⁸ tells us that it started from the gate of the castle, passed along the ridge at the back of Pride Hill, at the bottom of which it turned along the line of High Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at the back of more modern buildings.

      The town continued to grow and more extensive defences were needed, and in the time of Henry III, Mr. Auden states that this followed the old line at the back of Pride Hill, but as the ground began to slope downwards, another wall branched from it in the direction of Roushill and extended to the Welsh Bridge. This became the main defence, leaving the old wall as an inner rampart. From the Welsh Bridge the new wall turned up Claremont Bank to where St. Chad's Church now stands, and where one of the original towers stood. Then it passed along Murivance, where the only existing tower is to be seen, and so along the still remaining portion of the wall to English Bridge, where it turned up the hill at the back of what is now Dogpole, and passing the Watergate, again joined the fortifications of the castle.⁹ The castle itself was reconstructed by Prince Edward, the son of Henry III, at the end of the thirteenth century, and is of the Edwardian type of concentric castle. The Norman keep was incorporated within a larger circle of tower and wall, forming an inner bailey; besides this there was formerly an outer bailey, in which were various buildings, including the chapel of St. Nicholas. Only part of the buildings on one side of the inner bailey remains in its original form, but the massive character of the whole may be judged from the fragments now visible.

      These walls guarded a noble town full of churches and monasteries, merchants' houses, guild halls, and much else. We will glance at the beauties that remain: St. Mary's, containing specimens of every style of architecture from Norman downward, with its curious foreign glass; St. Julian's,