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Great Writing - Home > Extended > Marple and the Chartists - Chapter 12
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Extended Work
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| Marple and the Chartists - Chapter 12 | |
| By jean.day | ||||
| 16 January 2007 | ||||
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Wrexham and Chester We had a comfortable night and an early breakfast. Matilda had been able to get her coach the afternoon before, so it was just me to be Mrs. Isherwood’s maid. I had no problems with her clothing or hair styling, and she said she was very pleased with me. I was to accompany her to Chester and if we were not needed at the court, we would spend our time touring the sites of this our county’s most important city.February, 1843 As we drove north and west into Chester, we passed through the ancient city walls, and saw a massive stone weir as we went over the Dee Bridge. Mrs. Isherwood, who is well versed in history told me that this piece of high ground where the River Dee sweeps in a gradual curve has had strategic importance from earliest times, and around the year 907AD, the Saxons of Mercia under Aethelfleda, as part of their re-occupation of the old Roman fortress, erected a fortified base here and incorporated it into their extension to the walls, to serve as part of their defenses against the Danes, who were then being driven out of Ireland and looking for new lands to occupy. I hoped we would be able to walk around the city on the wall. She told me that Chester Castle was the frontier base from which North Wales was attacked and eventually conquered in the 12th and 13th centuries and the exchequer, courts and prison were based here, as well as housing the garrison. In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, took Chester, soon after mustering his troops under the walls and marching against Richard II, whom he took at Flint Castle. He returned to Chester with the unfortunate monarch (dressed in the monk's robe in which he had attempted to escape) and the Earl of Salisbury "mounted on two little white nagges not worth 40 francs" and lodged them in the Castle. After resting in a tower over the outer gateway, they were escorted to Westminster. Bolingbroke deposed Richard- who was murdered in prison the following year- and was elected King Henry IV by Parliament. After centuries of service, Chester Castle sustained serious damage during the Civil War, which you now know so much about, Eliza, and by the 18th century had been allowed to fall into a state of advanced decay. After the war, Oliver Cromwell had ordered many castles- such as that at nearby Liverpool- to be partially or completely demolished so they could not be used to wage war again, but here at Chester the least damaged parts of the building continued in use. Now we had reached our goal - the court at Chester Castle.In the centre is a massive and impressive portico. Mrs. Isherwood told me the history of this too. Each of its twelve Doric columns is formed from one single stone 23 feet in height. The interior of the court was built in a semi-circle with twelve Ionic columns as supports. Originally, the jury's retiring room and the turnkey's lodge were to the left of the court, as was also the entrance to the cells, the lower level of which were occupied by the felons and the upper by the debtors. "Architect Thomas Harrison who was responsible for making Chester Castle as it appears today," she said, "has been praised creating one of the most powerful monuments of the Greek Revival in the whole of England." In 1783, the prison reformer John Howard visited Chester On a visit overseas, he had been captured by privateers and imprisoned in terrible conditions in France. After his release, this bitter experience led him to devote his considerable energies and fortune to campaigning for an improvement in prison conditions- he persuaded the government to order gaolers to be paid properly- formerly they were forced to live on what they could extort for the inmates- and prisons to be kept clean and their occupants decently fed. He described the medieval Northgate Gaol as "insufficient, inconvenient and in want of repair" and compared it to the Black Hole of Calcutta. Stung by Howard's criticisms, the city authorities realised something had to be done, so, as part of the rebuilding of the Castle, a new prison was commissioned and opened in 1792. The design aimed to provide the inmates with dry and airy cells, and the sexes were separated for the first time. Different classes of prisoner were also segregated- debtors were housed in 'airy yards' on the upper level, said to "command a delightful view of the fine ruins of Beeston Castle". Upon completion, Harrison's gaol was praised as "in every respect one of the best-constructed goals in the Kingdom". However, in 1817 the architect James Elmes commented "No-one viewing this edifice can possibly mistake it for anything but a gaol, the openings as small as convenient and the whole external appearance made as gloomy and melancholy as possible". As we walked into Chester Castle, and the place of the Assizes we saw a list on a board in the entry hall. I found it, I found John Robinson’s name. It says he is of labourer from Manchester - but it says exactly the same thing of all the accused. And then on the list of witnesses I found Mrs. Isherwood’s name. There were five witnesses from Stockport from the total of 68 in all. The jury of twelve were nearly all local to this area - only two from Stockport, none from Macclesfield or any area closer to Marple.
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