Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people (typically elderly people who can no longer work to earn enough to pay rent) to live in a particular community. They are often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain forms of previous employment, or their widows, and are generally maintained by a charity or the trustees of a bequest. Chester has its' fair share of them, and those shown below are behind the Bluecoat, on Northgate Street, and were attached to St John's Hospital, before it turned into the Bluecoat. They are reserved for 'poor persons of good character'. In April 2006, a brand new almshouse - the first to be built since the mid-19th century - was opened in the square behind the Bluecoat. Watched by its first tenant, Mary Pritchard, the formal opening of the new one-bedroom self-contained property was carried out by the Lord Mayor and the Chairman of the body that today administers the almshouses, the Chester Municipal Charities.
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