Chester: Meadieval Town

Chester Cathedral is a cathedral of the new foundation which means that Henry VIII closed down the Benedictine monastery in the church at Chester and instituted a new cathedral there with a new bishop to head the diocese.  The Cathedral does charge for admission but this includes a rather temperamental audio guide which works when you approach green pillars in the building. One memorial is to the crew of HMS Chester, which included a ships boy, John Cornwell, killed at the battle of Jutland. There are memorial cottages to John Cornwell at Hornchurch. In the cloisters stands a sculpture by Stephen Broadbent. The Water of Life is set in a fish pond and is shown in the picture below. The medieval town walls stand on Roman foundations, and the old Roman moat was turned into a canal at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These are some of the oldest surviving town walls. The picture shows the deep gorge the canal runs through. The canal makes a pleasant walk back to my hotel, which was on the canalside.