Читать книгу The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and Its Environs - Thomas Smart Hughes - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The Railway Station.—Chester the Terminus of Six Railways.—Flookersbrook.—Lead Works.—Canal and Bridge.—William Penn the Quaker.—Foregate Street and Old Watling Street.—Post Office and Old Bank.—The Eastgate, Roman and Mediæval.—The Eastgate of to-day.

Presuming, gentle reader, you have sagaciously chosen us as your companion, we will evince our desire to be friendly and agreeable by meeting you at the Station (for doubtless you have only just arrived by train), and taking you affectionately under our wing, will straightway introduce you to the chief Lions of Chester.

What think you, in the first place, of our noble Station, with its elegant iron roof of sixty feet span, and its thirteen miles of railway line? Twenty years ago, the ground it stands upon, and indeed the neighbourhood around, were but plain kitchen-gardens and uninteresting fields. But a marvellous change has been effected since then, and, as if by enchantment, suburban Flookersbrook has now become the very life’s-blood of the city. Stretching away on either side of us, as far as the eye can reach, we see the passengers’ arrival and departure sheds, booking offices, refreshment rooms, goods and carriage depots, waterworks, gasworks, and all the other facilities and conveniences which are the usual characteristics of the railway system; while beyond the limits of the Station, and indeed of the city itself, which here intrenches upon the township of Hoole, the busy hum of life is ceaselessly heard spreading itself in every direction, and rapidly transforming the region of the plough into the turmoil of the town.

This Station is the grand central terminus of six several lines or branches, all meeting at Chester, viz., the London and North Western; the Great Western; the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction; the latter company’s branch to Manchester; the Chester and Holyhead; and the Chester and Mold Railways. It was erected in 1847–8 at the joint expense of the four principal companies, and is acknowledged to be one of the handsomest, as it is certainly one of the most extensive railway establishments in the kingdom. The building was designed by C. H. Wild, Esq., C.E., and Mr. Thompson, of London (the latter the architect of the Derby station) and was built by that enterprising and well-known contractor, Mr. Thos. Brassey, whom Cheshire proudly claims as her son. The passengers’ shed occupies a space of ground nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and presents to the city an elegant façade 1010 feet long, and a frontage, including the house and carriage landings, of 1160 feet. It is built of dark red fire bricks, relieved with copings and facings of Stourton stone. At each end of the Station, and projecting from the main building, there is a shed for cabs and omnibuses awaiting the arrival of trains, each 290 feet long by 24 feet broad, covered with an iron roof.

On the inner side of the building is the General Departure Platform, extending 1010 feet in length by twenty feet in width; this and three lines of rails are covered with an exceedingly chaste and elegant iron roof of sixty feet span, designed and carried out by Mr. Wild, C.E. Behind this shed again, but visible from the general platform through the arches, is the spare carriage shed, 600 feet long by fifty-two feet broad. The whole arrangements of the buildings are admirably adapted to carry on with comfort to the public and with facility to the employés, the immense business that has so suddenly been brought to the city by the convergence of so many railways at this point.

Some idea may be formed of the extent of the business here transacted, when it is stated that of passenger trains only, there now arrive and depart upwards of ninety-eight, averaging 3500 passengers daily, or one and a quarter millions annually.

The full extent of the passengers’ station from the carriage landing at the east end to the one at the west end, is 1160 feet. This noble building is an object of considerable attraction: it occupies a space of ground a quarter of a mile in length;—only half the building appears in our illustration. Great expedition was displayed by Mr. Brassey in its erection, for although the first stone was only laid in August 1847, on the 1st of August 1848 it was publicly opened for traffic.

The centre of the building, which is two stories in height, contains in the upper compartments, offices for the General Station Committee for the Chester and Holyhead, and the Great Western Railways; while on the ground floor, besides the usual offices and waiting rooms, we find the noble range of Refreshment Rooms, presided over with efficient zeal and attention by Mr. Hobday, and his select corps of experienced assistants. If after your late journey, you feel any of the cravings of the inner man,—if dinner à-la-mode lie uppermost in your thoughts—if you would enjoy an invigorating cup of coffee, unimpeachable pastry, a good glass of ale, or a fragrant cigar, take a turn in the Refreshment Rooms, and the utmost wish of your soul will be incontinently gratified.

The entire number of hands employed upon the passenger station is 109, and in the goods department 130, including clerks, porters, pointsmen, &c. Between seventy and eighty goods trains arrive and depart every twenty-four hours, averaging 1600 wagons daily. In 1855, somewhere about 684,000 tons of goods, minerals and livestock passed under the manipulation of Mr. H. Parker, general goods manager. The Station Committee manufacture their own gas, the consumption of which upon this station is about 6,500,000 feet per annum. The present gas and waterworks now need to be removed more to the south-east in order to afford additional station room—the smallness of the present immense building being a source of continual and growing inconvenience. [13]

Leaving now the Station, we see upon our left hand the lofty Shot Tower and Lead Works of Messrs. Walker, Parker and Co., proprietors of a similar establishment near London Bridge; while on the right our view is obstructed by the handsome and commodious Bridge which here stretches across the railway, and connects the city with its suburb, Flookersbrook. Those carpetbags and cloaks, by-the-bye, however useful they may be in their way, are but superfluous companions for a jaunt about the city. Suppose, then, we drop in at the Liver, a most respectable Hotel, within hail of the Station, and there depositing our luggage in one of the cosy bedrooms of that establishment, we will sally forth on our mission. After one night’s sojourn at this house you’ll know your, hotel, we promise you, for all future time. Wending our way into the city, along Brook Street, we come in due course to Cowlane Bridge, erected in 1776, when the canal which flows beneath it was originally projected.

From this point we have our first glimpse of the Cathedral and City Walls, and a venerable sight it is, as our little illustration sufficiently testifies. Towering aloft above surrounding objects the sacred fane of St. Werburgh, presents itself to our view, in all its massive but rugged proportions, as the mother church of a vast and populous diocese. Of the Cathedral itself, as also of the Walls, we shall have abundance to say by-and-bye.

Cast your eye to the right, along the hue of the City Walls, and at their north-east angle take a distant view of yon reverend turret, overhanging the Canal. How forcibly does it remind us that—

The days of old, though time has reft

The splendours they once cast,

Yet many a relic still is left

To shadow forth the past!

People call it, in these days, the Phœnix Tower; but two hundred years ago, and even then it was accounted old, the name it usually bore was Newton’s Tower. On its lofty ramparts, in 1645, stood the royal martyr, King Charles, to witness a sanguinary contest not far from the city, which ended in the total defeat of his troops by the parliamentary forces. In that day’s struggle, and in the Siege that followed it, many a Chester hero bit the dust; and the roll-call that evening proclaimed many an infant fatherless, many a wife a widow! But why should we anticipate? We shall soon be close to the very walls of this Tower, and may then soliloquise to our heart’s content on those terrible times.

For the present, then, we will move on along Frodsham Street, anciently called Cowlane, pausing midway to reflect that in the Quakers’ Meeting-house, at the corner of Union Walk, Friend William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, held forth to his admirers, King James II. being on one occasion an attentive hearer. Continuing on our course a short distance, we emerge from Cowlane into a wide but irregular street, named indifferently Forest or Foregate Street, the latter, from its standing immediately before the gate,—the Eastgate, close by, being always esteemed the porta principalis of the city. Foregate Street forms a part of the old Watling Street of the Romans; so that it existed as a road almost as early as the crucifixion of Our Lord! Fifty years ago this was as curious a street as any within the city; but the ancient piazzas which once ran continuously along it, are now becoming mere specks in the landscape, and “like angels’ visits, few and far between.” Not far from where we are standing, near the corner of St. John’s Street, are two superior travellers’ inns, the Hoppole, and the Blossoms, the latter a house of the highest standing and respectability, admirably adapted for the accommodation of visitors, and for all those who would enjoy the comfort of a home combined with the advantages of a first-class Hotel. At the rear of the Blossoms, in St. John Street, is the Post Office, a neat stuccoed building, erected in 1842, at the sole expense of William Palin, Esq., the present post-master. Prior to this, the business of the Post-Office was conducted in a dark and dreary building, situate up a court, still known as the Old Post-Office Yard. It was to Rowland Hill, and his wonder-working penny stamp, that the citizens owed this satisfactory change from darkness unto light.

Yonder white stone building at the head of St. John Street is the well-known banking establishment of Messrs. Williams & Co., usually denominated the Old Bank. And, here, crossing the street at an altitude of some thirty feet, is the Eastgate, a noble arch, with a postern on either side, erected in 1769, on the site of a Gateway, dating back to the days of the Third Edward, by Robert, first Marquis of Westminster, whose arms, with those of the city, ornament the keystone of the centre arch.

Handsome and commodious as is the present Eastgate,—on every score but that of convenience, it is immeasurably inferior to its predecessor. Could we but look upon the structure as it existed only a hundred years ago, with its beautiful Gothic archway, flanked by two massive octagonal towers, four stories in height, supporting the Gate itself and the rooms above,—could we but resuscitate the time-worn embattlements of that “ancient of days,” we should wonder at and pity the spurious taste that decreed its fall. “Oh, but,” we may be told, “the present Gate was a public improvement.” A plague upon such improvements, say we! We should vastly have preferred, and so would every lover of the antique, whether citizen or stranger, to have retained the old Gate in its integrity, altered, had need been, to meet the growing wants of the times, rather than have thus consigned it to the ruthless hands of the destroyer. Oh! ye spirits of the valiant dead,—you who lost your lives defending this Gate against the cannons of Cromwell, why did ye not rise up from your graves, and arrest the mad course of that “age of improvement!” When this Gate was being demolished, the massive arches of the original Roman structure were laid bare to the view, and a portion of one of them is yet to be seen on the north-west side of the present Gateway.

At this point we will turn away from the street, and, ascending the steps on the north-east side, will amuse ourselves in the next chapter with a quiet Walk Round the Walls of Chester.