Building record 12000/14 - Chester City Walls - Phoenix Tower / King Charles Tower

The King Charles Tower (or Phoenix Tower), known at an early date as Newton's Tower, was, by the seventeenth century called Phoenix Tower after the Golden Phoenix – the emblem of Painters & Stationers' Co, that used the building as a meeting place at that time. Above the door, is a carving of a phoenix inscribed with the date 1613. At the time, it was leased jointly to two city companies, the Painters and Stationers and the Barbers and Chandlers, who themselves occupied the upper storey and sublet the lower to other guilds. The tower is also known as King Charles Tower, because it is alleged that on 24 September 1645, Charles I stood there while his army was defeated at Rowton Moor, a few miles to the south-east (1). It was damaged badly during the Civil War and so was rebuilt in 1658 (2). As it currently stands, the tower is semi-circular and marks the north-east angle of the medieval defences. It was rebuilt again and refaced during the eighteenth century. It is c 21m high, rising on a stepped battered base. Possibly the only original part of the tower to survive is the lower chamber, octagonal in plan, with a diameter of c 9m. The original fenestration probably corresponded to that of lower room and five arrow slits. Later steps led to upper storey, whose division from the lower is marked by a string course. Original access to the upper storey and roof is likely to have been provided by an internal stair that no longer survives (3). It was abandoned as a meeting place in 1773, and was described as dilapidated by 1838. With the increase in tourism from the 1840s, the tower was promoted as an attraction because of a supposed association with Charles I. In the early 1850s the lower room was occupied by a print-seller, and from the late nineteenth century the tower housed a small private museum. It was by that time that it had become commonly known as King Charles’ Tower (11). Please see the linked listed building record for additional structural detail (10). While two small trenches were excavated into the fabric of the tower and of the adjacent section of the city wall in 2010 (CHER 12000/13), some information on the makeup and construction of the tower was gained (8). A partially surviving sandstone slab surface of uncertain date was recorded below the internal floor level of the tower, and several episodes of repair and surface creation were identified within the walkway of the adjacent stretch of wall, demonstrating that its height had been raised throughout the medieval and post medieval periods, and the width of the wall at this location was widened, probably during the eighteenth century (8).

<1> Harris, B.E., 1979, Bartholomew City Guides - Chester, /81 (Book). SCH394.

<2> Simpson, F., 1910, The Walls of Chester, /17 (Book). SCH3255.

<3> Pevsner N & Hubbard E, 1971, The Buildings of England: Cheshire, /154-155 (Book). SCH3078.

<4> Morris, Rupert H (Rev.), 1894, Chester in the Plantagenet & Tudor Reigns, /245 (Book). SCH946.

<5> Ordnance Survey, 1870-1982, Ordnance Survey Archaeological Record Card, SJ46NW26.6/1964 (Index). SCH2487.

<7> Donald Insall Associates, Chester City Walls Conservation Management Plan, R3251 (Client Report). SCH6603.

<8> Earthworks Archaeological Services, 2010, Remedial Work in the Vicinity of the King Charles Tower, City Walls, Chester, R3042a (Client Report). SCH5407.

<9> Cheshire West and Chester Historic Environment Service, 2011, Chester City Walls: King Charles Tower 2010 Archaeological Evaluation, R3042b (Client Report). SCH6681.

<10> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 470151 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

<11> Lewis C.P & Thacker A.T. (eds), 2005, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume Vii, The City of Chester - The City of Chester, Culture, Buildings, Institutions, p220 (Book). SCH6522.