Our picture shows the River Dee and southern aspect of the city of Chester. Bridge Street runs up the left-hand side of the photograph towards the Cross, beyond which runs Northgate Street.

The white line indicates the course of the City Walls, within the north east corner of which stands the Cathedral. Just past the 'dog-leg' of the wall, the dense collection of buildings bordering Newgate Street have yet to be cleared to make way for the Grosvenor Shopping Precinct.The well-preserved remains of an enormous Roman bath house were discoved here, but were entirely destroyed by the developers.

South of the river- in the bottom right-hand corner- the large buildings at this time belonging to the Ministry of Defence have recently given way to the crass headquarters building of Capital Bank- now the Bank of Scotland.

The cattle Market- seen in the top right-hand corner- at Gorse Stacks was still standing at this time and the circular area next to the City Wall and below the 'Roman Garden'- and once the site of a cock-pit- was still a well-maintained bowling green. A 'fun-pub' was later built on the Groves here and the bowling green allowed to become neglected and overgrown. After remaining derelict for many years, it has recently bee landscaped to allow the Roman Garden to continue down the the river.

To the right of this garden , St.John's House still stands on the as-yet unexcavated Roman Amphitheatre. It was demolished in June 1958 to allow the northern half to be uncovered. In February 2000, the still-buried southern half is due to have an office block and car park built upon it...