Three Old Arches

Three Old Arches is located at 48 Bridge Street.. Together with the adjacent building at No. 50, it has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. The stone frontage at the street and row levels of No. 48 is considered to be the earliest shop front still surviving in England. It was once the largest known medieval town house in the Chester Rows, and the stone-walled hall at the row level extending to No. 50 was the largest hall set parallel to the rows in Chester. Currently empty, it looks as though something will be happening there SOON. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Old_Arches

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The Phone Box ATM

With the advent of the mobile phone the public telephone network, along with all those beautiful red phone boxes, has become largely redundant. A new use has been found for one in Bridge Street - it has been turned into a cash machine and now dispenses bank notes to happy shoppers.

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Amakai Caribbean Shop

Brook Street is turning into an interesting food shopping area, and amongst the shops down there is Amakai, who sell all manner of Caribbean goodies. Currently they also seem to be doing a nice line in bedding plants - why, I have no idea.

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Corks Out Delivery Chute

The other day I was walking past Corks Out on Watergate Street and their side door was open, showing the delivery chute down which barrels of wine would have been rolled when they arrived. I guess the chute dates from around the 12th century, and nothing has really changed at all, although wine now tends to be delivered already bottled rather than being done on the premises.

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Mile Markers

All around Chester, on the main roads, are mile markers, which tell you how far you are from the Cross. I guess that they are a hangover from the days when arrival in the city was normally either on foot or horseback, and they are looking a little shabby and uncared for now.

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St John's Church - Mediaevalness

If there is such a word as 'mediaevalness', then St John's qualifies. The interior was described by Pevsner as 'transporting him back to the twelfth century', and there is an extant wall painting from that period on one of the pillars. I was also interested to see that the stained glass windows, although from a later time, clearly show musicians playing at the Last Supper.

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Medieval Music And Dancing

There were four groups performing medieval music at the Minstrels Court this year, and Trouvere, one of them, were very impressive live performers, and you can find out more about them here: http://www.medievalminstrels.com. They were playing their 'Music for a Medieval Prince' set. Another set of musicians led the audience in medieval dances round the church.

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Medieval Pottery

This year the Grosvenor Museum had a display of real medieval pottery at the Minstrels Court, from local sources, and there was a fair amount of replica stuff in use in various ways. See if you can spot which is which.

 

 

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Pilgrim's Badges

In medieval times pilgrims would wander the country, and abroad, visiting shrines. They started breaking pieces off shrines as mementos, and in order to stop this the church created pilgrim's badges, which could be sold. They were very popular, and each shrine had its' own design. The one on the far left of the photo shows a flock of geese, and would have come from the shrine of St Werburgh, patron saint of Chester.

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Handels Court Art Gallery

Over the weekend there were two arty happenings - there was the Chester Arts Festival at Abode (the hotel in HQ building), and also the opening of a new art gallery in Handel's Court. The gallery itself is over the top of Joseph Benjamin restaurant, near the Northgate, but the entrance to it is round the back, in a small courtyard sandwiched between Rufus Court and Northgate Street. Steve Howe of the Chester Shop is also moving into the same premises. You can find out more about them here: http://hcgallery.co.uk/

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Medieval Marbles

At the Minstrel's Court were various games that would have been played in the Middle Ages. Medieval marbles were made of clay, rather than glass. This was because at that time the technology was there to make glass (there are glass counters and tokens for games), but they did not yet know how to make round glass. They also couldn't yet make glass large enough and flat enough for windows, hence bullseye panes.

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Minstrels Court 2012 - People

Last Saturday the Minstrel's Court was held, and I went along and saw some interesting things, of which more later). There were many multi-talented people re-enacting Medieval times, all with tales to tell and with period clothing. Below are a few of them. You should beware of going along to things like this - at least a couple of the people I saw dressed up I also saw as spectators last year...

  

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Amphitheatre Cinema

The amphitheatre currently has an outdoor large screen cinema, and there are various showings (last year there was a highly popular singalong Mamma Mia). Unfortunately on the day I went past they were being defeated by the not-so-wonderful British weather, with only the very brave (or foolhardy) watching. This was 3:30pm, and, yes, it really was that dark.

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Midsummer/Midwinter Watch Workshop

Have you ever wondered where all those midsummer and midwinter watch creatures and creations go when they aren't in use? Well, I found out and went to see some of them being repaired in their secret, magical, workshop. The Midsummer Watch parade is next weekend, at 2pm on either day, and all are welcome to come and cheer them on.

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Sally's Secret Garden - Ceilings II

The second upstairs room at the front of Sally's Secret Garden has amazing plasterwork ceilings, which will be part of the Chester Heritage Open Days this year, but the staff will be delighted to show you any time you care to drop in. I was told that this was originally a house that captains of merchant ships calling at Chester stayed in, and that some of the decoration reflects that.

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Sally's Secret Garden - Ceilings I

Sally's Secret Garden is at 22 Bridge Street Row, part of what are called the Dutch Houses - you can read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Houses,_Chester
Downstairs the shop is a single room, but upstairs the premises extend over both numbers 20 and 22. The room over 22 has timber beams which are of what I was told are timbers probably taken from ships wrecked in the Armada, but the room over 20 is totally different (see tomorrow's blog entry).

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Cath Kidston Comes To Chester

There have been a spate of new shop openings around town, and Cath Kidston was amongst them. Open for the first time today, there were already a fair number of shoppers looking around by 10am this morning.

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Sally's Secret Garden

I went into a relatively new shop in Chester today - Sally's Secret Garden. They are in Bridge Street Row, and you can see more about them here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sallys-Secret-Garden/297126007018984
I was buying a birthday present for a friend (sshh... she doesn't know yet) and got talking to the person behind the counter. They have various plans for the shop, including opening up the secret garden at the back and having various exhibitions and complementary therapies. However, the best was when he said 'and would you like to come upstairs and see the ceilings?' - not an offer I get every day. So, more on the subject in tomorrow's blog.

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Roman Domesticity

Last, but by no means least, are various domestic items. The knife has a bend in it, so that when you were cutting something in the kitchen you could press harder on the top with your index finger, and would have been worn in a sheath at the owner's side. The bag would have been used for storage or for shopping - their equivalent of supermarket carrier bags, I guess. I was surprised to see a pan that looked like steel, but it is in fact tinned, and is shown on a domestic charcoal stove. The Roman did have steel, but hadn't worked out how to make it consistent, so sometimes it came out strong and other times brittle - a highly hit or miss process.

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Vicus

The vicus was an area outside Roman camps or cities where either the local indigenous peoples or the camp followers would dwell. The is a group which specialises in re-enacting the vicus, and you can find out more about them here: http://www.vicus.org.uk/
In Chester it is thought that the name may have been corrupted and have given rise to the area of Chester now known as Vicars Cross.

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Minstrels Court and Medieval Music Makers

In recent years the Minstrels Court has been revived, and this year a concert of Medieval music has been added, played by the Time Bandits, a group of local musicians who specialise in re-creating medieval music. You can read more about them, and listen to some of their music, here: http://www.thetimebandits.co.uk/

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Blanche Rowen

Part of Chester is, of course, in Wales, so we often hear Welsh spoken in the street. Last night I went to the Bear & Billet, and saw a couple of songs performed by the duo of Blanche Rowen and Mike Gulston. Blanche sings in Welsh and French as well as English, and has a beautiful voice, which I hope you will be able to hear here: 

http://www.myspace.com/mikegulstonblancherowen/music/songs/tell-me-my-love-ffoles-llantrisant-15688438
n.b. unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me last night, so the photo is stolen from their website, for which I hope they will forgive me.

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