The Black & White Picture Place

Details from John McGahey's View of Chester from a Balloon 1855:

3. The River Dee & Grosvenor Bridge

This somewhat fuzzy, but nontheless fascinating, detail from John McGahey's aerial view of Chester in 1855 shows the River Dee and two of its crossings: at the bottom left is the Old Dee Bridge- built around about the year 1387, on the site of a succession of earlier wooden bridges and a pre-Roman fording place- and above it the Grosvenor Bridge which was completed and opened to traffic by the thirteen year-old Princess Victoria (five years before she became Queen) in November 1833, just eighteen years before this view was made. The bridge was designed by Thomas Harrison, architect of many of Chester's finest buildings, and proved to be his final work- at the time of the commission he was 82 years old. In fact, he did not live to see its completion- he resigned aged 85 and died four years later, the great task not yet completed. The work was finished by his able pupil and assistant, William Cole. Until 1864, it was the greatest single span- at 200 feet across and 60 feet high- of any stone arch anywhere in the world. The road leading to it, Grosvenor Street, was created at the same time, cutting diagonally through the city's ancient grid of streets and necessitating the destruction of hundreds of houses and the 1,000-year-old Church of St. Bridget. This was rebuilt at the end of the new street close to the Castle (you can see it on the right of the picture, just to the left of the smoking chimney) but was again demolished to make way for a traffic island on the new Inner Ring Road in the 1960s. With the exception of one tower and some curtain walling, the medieval castle had been completely rebuilt in the Greek Doric style by Thomas Harrison, the task only being completed in 1822, thirty years before McGahey made his splendid study. The open area to the right of the Grosvenor Bridge is the Roodee. Horse races have been held here regularly since around 1533, making it Britain's (and therefore probably the world's) oldest racecourse. Notice how the city wall here is surrounded by open land on all sides. That below the line of the wall formerly belonged to the Convent of St. Mary's but soon after this image was made, the large castle-like Militia Buildings were erected here to house the families of the Castle's garrison. Today, the old Militia Buildings would doubtless be in demand for conversion into 'luxury' apartments but they were sadly demolished to make way for the exceedingly ugly and inappropriately-sited County Police Headquarters, which was built between 1964 and 1967. This in turn was demolished in 2007 and the building of a vast new complex of hotel, shops and apartments, to be called 'HQ" has recently commenced. At the bottom of the picture, the line of Lower Bridge Street may be traced from St. Michael's Church in the bottom right-hand corner to the Bridgegate and mills on the Old Dee Bridge. Note the almost total lack of houses on the far bank of the river at this time. Other enlarged sections from McGahey's wonderful illustration: The Old Port The Kaleyards The Northgate St. John's Church The Cathedral

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