27th July 1819, Chester Cathedral, Castle, Eaton Hall

Tuesday 27th July 1819

Tuesday July 27th After breakfast we inspected the interior of the Abbey part of which is very old but not striking it is being repaired in a very inferior manner there is nothing worthy of notice in the Castle. At about one o’clock we went to Eaton Hall 4 miles from Chester a very fine seat of Earl Grosvenor the house is built in the Gothic style the finest I ever saw; there are also beautiful grounds and hothouses & greenhouses after dinner we proceeded along an uninteresting

road to Liverpool but arriving late at the Ferry we were unable to cross owing to the water being too low we therefore slept at the Ferry house

OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS:

Chester Cathedral interior: The cathedral and former monastic buildings were extensively restored during the 19th century amidst some controversy, shared by Lucy in her comment: it is being repaired in a very inferior manner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Cathedral

1836: The Bishop's Chapel Chester Cathedral. from Prout's Antiquities of Chester and published by Ackerman & Co and Boult & Cargerall, Chester. http://www.rareoldprints.com/p/19611

The Castle was built in 1070 by Hugh d'Avranches, the second Earl of Chester. Prominent people held as prisoners in the crypt of the Agricola Tower were Richard II and Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Andrew de Moray, hero of the Battle of Stirling Bridge. During the Wars of the Roses, Yorkist John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu was captured and imprisoned at the castle by Lancastrians following the Battle of Blore Heath, near the town of Market Drayton, Shropshire, in 1459. He was released from captivity following the Yorkist victory at Northampton in 1460. Outside the outer bailey gate was an area known as the Gloverstone where criminals waiting for execution were handed over to the city authorities. The Great Hall was rebuilt in the late 1570s. It was besieged by Parliamentary forces several times during the English Civil War, after which it was used as a prison, a court and a tax office. In 1687 James II attended Mass in the chapel of St Mary de Castro. In 1696 Chester mint was established and was managed by Edmund Halley in a building adjacent to the Half Moon tower. During the 1745 Jacobite rising a gun emplacement was built on the wall overlooking the river. By the later part of the 18th century much of the fabric of the castle had deteriorated and John Howard, the prison reformer, was particularly critical of the conditions in the prison. Thomas Harrison was commissioned to design a new prison. This was completed in 1792 and praised as one of the best constructed prisons in the country.

1822: Chester Castle. Lithograph drawn and engraved by Francis Nicholson, Printed by C Hullmandel. http://www.rareoldprints.com/z/11636

2008: Chester Castle The oval motte of the castle with the half-moon tower visible at the left end. Author John Allan from the Geograph project collection. The copyright is owned by John Allan and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Att… — 2008: Chester Castle The oval motte of the castle with the half-moon tower visible at the left end. Author John Allan from the Geograph project collection. The copyright is owned by John Allan and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chester_Castle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1022086.jpg

Harrison then went on to rebuild the medieval Shire Hall in neoclassical style. He also built two new wings, one to act as barracks, the other as an armoury, and designed a massive new entrance to the castle site, styled the Propylaeum. The buildings, which were all in neoclassical style, were built between 1788 and 1822. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner comments that Harrison's work constitutes "one of the most powerful monuments of the Greek Revival in the whole of England". Lucy found noting of note in the Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Castle

Eaton Hall has been the country house of the Grosvenor family since the 15th century.

In the 17th century, formal gardens were created around the Samwell Hall; these included such features as parterres and canals. However they were costly to maintain, and in the later part of the 18th century fashions changed to favour a more informal type of garden layout. Credit for designing the informal gardens at Eaton Hall has been given to Lancelot "Capability" Brown. Although one of Brown's documents dated 1764 shows that payment was made to him by the estate, it also notes that a plan for the garden had been drawn up by William Emes. From this, Marion Mako concludes that, as Brown was an engineer as well as a landscape gardener, the payment was for an engineering project rather than for landscaping. Emes had been influenced by Brown, although he had not been his pupil. With his clerk of works, Thomas Leggett, Emes worked in the estate for the next 10 years.

When Robert Grosvenor (later the 1st Marquess) inherited the estate at the beginning of the 19th century, it had become run-down. The marquess appointed John Webb, a pupil of Emes, to improve the garden and the landscaping. Among Webb's innovations were new terrace walls behind the house, the levelling of Belgrave Avenue and the planting of 130,000 trees along it, and a serpentine lake to the east of the house alongside the River Dee. He also arranged for the construction of greenhouses and a kitchen garden.

1823: The Temple, Lord Grosvenor's, from Ackermann's Repository, Publisher: R. Ackermann http://www.rareoldprints.com/z/21601

Eaton Hall is not open to the public, but the gardens are open three days each year for charity. In the area of the Stable Court are a number of rooms which are used for exhibitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaton_Hall,_Cheshire The Carriage Museum holds the Westminster Collection of Carriages. These can be viewed on the Gardens Charity open days: https://www.eatonestate.co.uk/our-heritage/carriages.aspx

Ferries between the Wirral Peninsula and Liverpool have been in use on this route since at least the 12th century when Benedictine monks charged a small fare to row passengers across the river. The Chester Indictments record criminal activities on the Mersey ferries in the 14th and early 15th centuries. In 1355, Richard, son of Simon de Becheton, was murdered on the ferry; the murderers escaped and took refuge at Shotwick. In 1365, it was recorded that there were four ferryboats operating without a licence, from Bromborough and Eastham. In 1414, William de Stanley, the servant of John Talbot, later Earl of Shrewsbury, was on the ferry between Birkenhead and Liverpool when about 200 men assaulted him, and stole his bay horse valued at £5 (current value - over £2,800), a bow and 14 arrows valued at 3s 4d (current value - over £95) and a barge valued at £10 (current value - over £5,700). The thieves were fined. During this period, the private owners began to use fully rigged sailing ships which meant that bigger vessels could be employed, but in reality these boats were even more at the bidding of the weather.

The Mersey is famed for its thick fogs, and during these times during winter there was little wind and ferries could not operate. The frequency depended on demand and the weather. By the 18th century, the commercial expansion of Liverpool and the increase in stage coach traffic from Chester spurred the growth of the transportation of passengers and goods across the river. Ferry services from Rock House on the Wirral – that is, Rock Ferry – were first recorded in 1709. By 1753 the Wirral side of the Mersey had at least five ferry houses at Ince, Eastham, the Rock, Woodside and Seacombe. The service from New Ferry to Liverpool was first mentioned in 1774. The first steamship to operate on the Mersey was the Elizabeth, a wooden paddle steamer, which was introduced in 1815 to operate between Liverpool and Runcorn.

1886: Crossing the Mersey : The Steam-Ferry between Liverpool and Birkenhead. Engraving which was published in "The Illustrated London News" on February 6th, 1886. https://antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/ref1.php?imagefile=../largeimages/ILNCrossin… — 1886: Crossing the Mersey : The Steam-Ferry between Liverpool and Birkenhead. Engraving which was published in "The Illustrated London News" on February 6th, 1886. https://antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/ref1.php?imagefile=../largeimages/ILNCrossingMersey15.jpg

The illustration of Birkenhead Ferry, above, shows life on deck during Victorian Times. The print below is probably earlier and shows the Steam-Ferry approaching the Liverpool long stage, ready to disembark.

Seacombe Ferry from the Wood-side, Birkenhead. Engraver: Rock & Co http://www.rareoldprints.com/p/5688

There was considerable debate as to the best way of boarding a ferry vessel. For the steam ferry Etna, which entered service at Tranmere on 17 April 1817, the idea of extension stages was mooted. These were long piers that were mounted on wheels and, by using a steam engine, could be wheeled in and out depending on the level of the tide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersey_Ferry We do not know whether Lucy travelled by sailing ship or steamer nor which Ferry House the Coplands stayed at.

Can you help us?

Old Regency Prints, Pictures an Coaching maps: Do you have access to any prints or pictures showing what town and country would have looked like when Lucy travelled through? Any illustrations of what she would have seen in 1819 will enliven our research.

New Pictures: Do you have any modern pictures of the streets, buildings, gardens and views that would enable us to see the changes that two centuries have wrought?

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