Monument record 8207/9 - Northern and North-Eastern Fortress Defensive Ditch

<1> Braun & Hogenberg, 1581, Chester Angliae (Maps and Plans). SCH6508.

This map depicts a wide ditch running parallel to the north wall of the city wall. It is also depicted along the nothern part of the east wall and terminating in the Kaleyards area.

<2> Thompson Watkin W. T., 1886, Roman Cheshire: A Description of Roman Remains in the County of Chester, p.104-5 (Book). SCH2878.

Watkin reports that the cutting of the canal cut, where its runs parallel to the north wall, was made unexpectedly easier by the dicovery that it conicidently followed the line of the Roman ditch (cites 3 & 4). He further reports that the ditch continued by the east wall, where its is 'marked by the sloping bank and subsequent depression which runs for about 100 yards parallel to the present wall, at about sixty yards distance. It may be traced...., in a slighter form, still further towards the East Gate' at a distance of about 60 feet from the present wall.

<3> Chester Courant, 1878-1990, The Cheshire Sheaf, Vol. I, No.465, 1879 (Newspaper-Magazine). SCH3105.

‘...the Directors.......asked the contractor to adopt the southern limit o their deviating powers, and so carry the Canal close under and parallel with the City Walls. The original line involved continuous and heavy excavation through the sandstone rook ; and the contractor, feeling that the question of a few yards either way could make no very great difference to him, accepted the proposition of the directors. Judge the surprise of all concerned, when it was found that the new line actually took the course of the ancient Roman fosse, excavated some 1500 years before, and for long ages filled up and made solid ground !’

<4> Bateman, G, 1827, The Stranger's Companion in Chester, p.37 (Book). SCH7707.

'A circumstance connected with this extraordinary work [the cut] deserves insertion, as every person must be astonished at the labour in completing it. The workmen employed’ discovered, shortly after the commencement of their operations, that instead of having to wholly cut through the solid rock, they found little else than rubbish and soil, the excavation being already formed in part at some early period, probably to procure stone for the churches and other public buildings. The business having been undertaken by contract was thus rendered very profitable to the engineer.'

<5> LeQuesne C, 1999, Excavations at Chester: The Roman and Later Defences Part I, p.44 (Monograph). SCH6156.

The secondary ditch is associated elsewhere with the reconstruction of the defences in stone and has general dimensions in the region of c 8.8 m wide x 3 m deep. No archaeological observations of a ditch of these dimensions have ever been made beside the North Wall, but there are reports of the existence of a significant drop in bedrock in this area in the eighteenth century. Quoting a description of the walls to the east of the North Gate from 1706, Hemingway (see 6) refers to 'a deep quarry' which 'lay in rubbish and useless, until of late years it was improved and cultivated'. Watkin (see 2) states that the line of the canal took the course of the ancient Roman fosse. Watkin could not have seen the area before the construction of the canal and his description of it as the defensive ditch, while plausible, should be treated with some caution.

<6> Hemingway, J., 1831, History of Chester, from its foundation to the present time. Volume 1, p.347 (Book). SCH1436.

'On the right [at the Phoenix Tower], and adjoining the walls we behold a deep quarry, at the west end of which stands the house of correction. The quarry lay in rubbish and useless, till of late years it was improved and cultivated..'

<7> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER, Edwards, R 11/09/2014 (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

There is a strong correlation with Watkin’s description of the ditch being 60 feet east of the eastern wall and the ditch discovered during investigations of the Frodsham Street car park in 2010 (CHER 8207/2). There is a strong possibility that this is the same feature. The ditch presumably formed part of the medieval defences and would have been modified, though the feature depicted on the map and described by Watkin, may possibly be medieval in origin.