History Walking Tour June 2017: Difference between revisions

 

 

The development of the Shropshire Union Canal and of industry along it, followed by the arrival of the railways and the building of Chester General Station, have helped to shape the lives of the people across Boughton and Hoole. This article introduces a selection of the interesting history explored on the tour with Phil Cook, and could be useful to anyone who also wishes to revisit the areas covered.

Members of Hoole History & Heritage Society took a walking tour from Westminster Road Community Centre, onto Boughton via the junction with Hoole Lane, explored this area and the canal side, returning past the long steel footbridge (closed June 2014) next to Westminster Road (Station View) Bridge on the narrow roadway, from which buses and large vehicles are banned today.

 

Arriving at the junction, standing outside the Health Centre, it is hard to imagine it as the open undeveloped land it was in the early 1800s.

 

Buildings which stood before the Civil War, were razed to the ground by Parliamentary forces when Chester was besieged, and the road, which follows the route of a Roman road, has been in use for a very long time.

 

 

Looking east to where Boughton divides, the distinctive black and white building, dating from 1900, was designed by John Douglas for the Co-operative Society and stands on the site of the ancient Boughton Chapel (destroyed 1643). The Co-op store in Walker Street, Hoole (although not designed by John Douglas) was also built at this time. John Douglas was a noted Chester architect, and he designed the original building of what became Westminster Road School, now Hoole Community Centre.

St. Paul’s Church dates from 1830. John Douglas, a member of its congregation, rebuilt the complex, adding the south aisle in 1902 and the spire in 1905. St. Paul’s School also began its life in a hall below the church, moving to a location near the canal later.

 

 

The Memorial Hall was the location of a British Restaurant during the Second World War. It provided a staple meal for about one shilling and sixpence and was set up by the government in order to supplement food rations. There was also a British Restaurant established in the Mission Hall on Westminster Road in Hoole.

Looking in the opposite direction, towards the centre of Chester, almost facing the end of what is now City Road, we imagined The Barrs, the ancient gateway built across the road, from which stretched the outer line of fortifications during the Siege of Chester in the Civil War, which had been removed in the early 1770s.

 

 

 

The construction of the canal during the 1770s, the building of the Leadworks and shot tower in 1800, the arrival of the railways in 1840, followed by construction of the water company’s reservoir, filter beds and water tower, led to this area becoming densely packed with industry and with housing.

 

A large number of terraces of small houses were built to the north of the main road through Boughton and along Hoole Lane towards Station View.

 

The Steam Mill was built for the firm of F.A. & J. Frost, millers, renamed F.A. Frost & Sons in 1854. Once a disused cotton mill, the present structure, with its tower, dates from 1834. By 1892 around 100 people worked there. When Milns Seeds took over the building the name on the mill tower changed.

It has been suggested that some of the Irish troops who fought in the Civil War may have settled in Boughton, and there were small waves of Irish migrants who arrived 1730 and 1748. However, the Potato Famine of 1851 saw an influx of Irish families into what became known as ‘Little Ireland’.

 

Many of the early terraces of housing were of poor quality and quickly built for owners to rent out. There was also overcrowding. The census recorded 18 people living in one small house in Steven Street.

 

 

 

 

In the years leading up to the First World War, the Railways and the Leadworks were the two biggest employers in Chester.

The Leadworks of Walkers, Parker& Co was established on the north side of the new canal in the late 1790s. The opening of the canal and the availability of land enabled them to purchase all the land between what became City Road and Hoole Lane, between the canal and the land which became the railway. In 1854 the site covered 16 acres.

 

 

The oldest public clock in Chester, made in 1803 by Whitehurst of Derby, was installed in the wall of one of the sheds facing the canal opposite St. Paul’s Infants School. After production ceased in 2001, the clock was removed, and, possibly, stolen.

In August 2016 local newspapers reported that a second redevelopment plan for the Leadworks and Tower area, designed by Broadway Maylan, award winning architects, had been approved to commence. This followed a serious fire in the tower in December 2015. On completion of the new scheme the base of the shot tower will become a Heritage Interpretation Centre with a focus on the historical elements of the Leadworks site.

 

 

The first meeting of The Chester Ragged School Institution had taken place on the 6th September 1851. Its objective, reported in the Chester Chronicle, was to provide instruction for the children of the poor; those who were prevented, by their circumstances, from all other means of improvement, other than by elementary education and industrial training.

In 1941, during World War 2, it replaced the Air Raid Precautions (ARP), and also included wardens, firemen, the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) and the National Fire Service (NFS), fire watchers, rescue, first aid, stretchers and covered industry.

 

Hoole Lane was the well-established route to Guilden Sutton, traditionally known as St. Ann’s Lane. It was informally called Workhouse Lane after the opening of the workhouse in 1878, but this name did not last.

 

Brindley Place has replaced the buildings destroyed in an explosion and fire. The new complex is named after James Brindley, the great canal builder who surveyed the route of the Chester Canal to Nantwich and Middlewich in 1770.

 

 

The small chapel with a spire dates from the early 1880's. It was St. Paul’s mission, linked to the Church and its parish. It is thought that it may have been provided for the use of the travelling population of canal boatmen and their families. The Mission is also the work of John Douglas, now converted into houses, next to the lock keeper’s cottage.

 

The black and white building is the Lock Vaults Public house. Between it and Station View Terrace, the Anglo-American Company had a small depot just before the Second World War, listed in Kelly’s Directory 1939.

 

 

In 1833 there were proposals to build a Birkenhead to Chester Canal that would have joined the Shropshire Union via a shallow lock just to the east of Hoole Lane Lock. The proposed route would have taken it through where Signal Court now stands, in a straight line roughly along what is now Crawfords Walk and Hamilton Street, passing just west of Newton Lane, curving gently at the junction of Brook Lane and Well Lane to pass through Upton and some of the site now developed as the Zoo, then crossing the Chester-Ellesmere Port Canal near Caughall. Had it been constructed, Hoole would have been an altogether different place.

 

 

The re-alignment of Station View Road has been considered many times. The bridge over the canal at Hoole Lane was rebuilt in the early 1920s, but any re-alignment would require the widening of the bridge over the railway. Additional land has been purchased for this purpose. The existing bridge is narrow and without footpaths and requires reconstruction. After the Second World War, it was felt that, should the reconstruction be achieved, the road could be connected with Hamilton Street by widening Crawford’s Walk, creating a traffic link between Boughton and Hoole.

 

The brick arch on the canal side of the Westminster Road Bridge dates from the opening of the Chester & Crewe Railway on 1st October 1840, when the Chairman of the Crewe & Chester Railway Company was Jack Uniacke, the Mayor of Chester. The principal contractor on the line was Thomas Brassey. A note in the plans, dated November 1836, requires the road to be raised by 12 feet in order to pass over the railway line. The Act of Parliament which authorised the line was one of the first signed by Queen Victoria, ten days after her accession to the throne on 20th June 1837. Prior to the introduction of railways, it took a couple of days to reach London from Chester in the fastest stagecoaches, but, by 1848, it was possible to reach London by train in six and a half hours.

 

Land from the estate of Thomas Brassey was later purchased by the Chester Poor Law Union Guardians to use as the site of the new workhouse in Hoole Lane. A good view of Chester Station used to be possible from the footbridge which is now closed. There were railway allotments between the two railway bridges in the past, but the introduction of the Power Signal Box brought this use of the land to an end.

There have been three major fires in the area of Lightfoot Street in living memory. On 8th May 1972 the brakes of a freight train failed, and it ran into Chester Station, carrying kerosene, sulphur oil and petrol. One of the tank wagons exploded and a major fire broke out, leading to the evacuation of properties in Lightfoot Street. Fortunately, the train had been routed into a bay in order to prevent its derailment, which might have led to much worse consequences.

 

 

After crossing the railway bridge towards Hoole, on the east side was the British Rail Staff Association Club, complete with its own miniature steam operated outdoor railway. Railway workers formed a close-knit community, working and socialising together. Anti-social working hours affected the way of life of railway families from the area until the mid- to late- eighties when employment patterns and transport changed significantly with the greater reliance on the car.