The Roman Legionary Fortress
The Chester Northgate site occupies the greater part of the
north-western quarter of a Roman fortress. The Fortress was
begun in the
70s AD by the 2nd Legion and was later reoccupied by the 20th
Legion. The site is roughly defined by the streets of the Roman
fortress:
to the east by the main north-south street; to the south by
the main east-west street; and to the west by the Fortress wall
and rampart
(part of which survives in a heavily damaged form) and its
intra-mural street. An irregular grid of north-south and
east-west Roman streets
then divided up the intervening site. The Headquarters
building {Principia) of the fortress was in the south-east
corner where the remains
of the strongroom still survive. To the north, under the
present Town Hall, was another large building, possibly a store
building or hospital
and to the west of this building was a building with an
elliptical plan that was destroyed when The Forum Centre was
built. The rest of the
site was filled with a store, a workshop and barrack blocks,
in the area of Hamilton House and the bowling green.
Sub-Roman Phase
The Fortress was abandoned in the 5th Century AD. The Roman
street pattern and buildings survived sufficiently, in ruin form
at least, to influence
the later Saxon topography. However, the area behind
Watergate Street and Northgate Street seemed to have been given
over to agricultural or
horticultural activity and does not appear to have been
occupied. Re-emergence of the Town from Late 9th-10th Centuries.
There was a brief Danish occupation of Chester and in 907 the
town was refortified. It is at this time that the medieval
street pattern may have
emerged within the area of the proposals, e.g. Crook Street,
Goss Street and Hamilton Place. These streets may reflect
earlier Roman alignments.
Settlement would have been widely spread across the area and
a number of Late Saxon buildings have already been excavated.
Princess Street
was not developed until after the Norman Conquest when the
focus of building became concentrated on the main street
frontages and Chester
began to take on an urban character.
The origins of the Row System on Northgate and Watergate are
still not fully understood but it was certainly in existence by
the mid 13 Century.
The side-street frontages began to be built up and the
back land areas were used for refuse pits and semi-industrial
purposes.
The application area occupies about 15% of the medieval town.
Post-medieval Intensification of
Land Use
As Chester's population expanded so the backs of the medieval
plots began to be built on. As population density increased in
the 18th and 19th centuries
yards and courts were built to exploit the back land.
The only exception was the area of the Bowling Green that
appears to have remained open continuously
since Roman times. The original covered market was built in
the 1860s.
Slum
Clearance and Commercial Development
By the 20th Century the high-density buildings in the
back land area had become run down and they were cleared away
together with the original
market hall (1967) to make way for the bus exchange, the
Forum and associateddevelopments. In the process the medieval
street pattern, particularly
the line of Crook Street was lost. Much of the below ground
archaeology was destroyed at this time, although deposits were
largely undisturbed in the
north-western area on either side of Hunter Street, to the
east of Goss Street and possibly under some of the streets,
although the latter would have been
disturbed by services.
Strong Room
The Roman Strong Room, which for years has been given poor
treatment, was not in our view to be displayed to full advantage
in the revised library scheme.
We consider the Roman Strong Room to be of great symbolic
importance to Chester, and hence the comments in our previous
correspondence"
Following further discussions and exchange of additional
information, English Heritage agreed that the removal of the
cantilevered floor over part of the
archaeological remains is not practicable. Accordingly their
objections to this one remaining part of the scheme were
withdrawn.
However, English Heritage point out that archaeological
interpretation in the relatively constrained foyer space will be
all the more critical and they have
requested that the most careful attention is given to
getting it absolutely right and achieving an exemplary scheme.
They comment that "adequate budgetary
provision will be needed to cover items such as lighting,
treatment of the public realm immediately outside the building,
conservation of the remains, finishes to the
viewing well and surrounding areas, as well as the actual
interpretative displays both inside and outside. Practical
considerations such as access for maintenance and
cleaning will also need careful thought Material
Considerations
The Northgate site contains some of the best-preserved remains
of the Roman fortress, in particular the legionary barracks and
Centurions' quarters.
The archaeological constraints as set out in the Draft
Development Brief for the site require the preservation of the
most important remains
(mainly in the north west part of the site around the bowling
green).
The current Development Brief (Donaldsons on behalf of CCC,
1999) calls for the protection, as far as possible,
of the archaeological deposits within the boundary.
Pictures
.
ChesterTourist.com Site Ring
