Chester Castle

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Chester Castle on the structural changes under Thomas Harris

Chester Castle is the name of an area in the English city of Chester, on the back to the 18th century a castle stood. From the large plant only the curtain wall of the inner courtyard of the Castle, the remains of the so-called Flag Tower ( German: Flag tower) are today, however - called Agricola Tower - and the inner castle gate from the 12th century preserved. The majority of today located on the site of the buildings are new buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries.

History

At the site of the medieval castle was a Saxon fortification since the 10th century. Hugh d' Avranches, the first Earl of Chester had to replace 1069/70 this by a moth in the Norman style. As a southern corner of the fortification of the castle Chester secured the nearby bridge over the Dee and served as a base for further Norman conquest of England. The wooden tower on a artificial hill was already in the 12th century, replaced by a stone square tower, the Flag Tower.

After 1237, the last Earl of Chester had died without a male heir, the county passed to the British Crown. King Henry III. and his son Edward I did in the following years the castle unmounted by a residential building in the south of the inner courtyard of the Castle and fix the entire system on. From 1247 to 1251 was the replacement of the wooden palisade with a stone curtain wall.

In the 12th century, the plant was expanded to include a large outer courtyard with a circular ring wall, which was in front of the main castle north. Its gatehouse was reinforced in 1290, so he insisted upon completion of the work of a mighty stone gate flanked by two semicircular towers. Accessible he was over a drawbridge that spanned an eight -meter-wide moat.

In the late 1570s several and partly representative buildings were erected on the east side of the outer courtyard of the Castle, which -based administration and the court of the county as well as a prison.

During the English Civil War Chester Castle was severe damage and it was inadequately enforced in the aftermath repaired. Around 1780, therefore, a large part of the run-down medieval buildings was laid down to make way for modern buildings. Between 1785 and 1822 were followed by the present building erected under the direction of Thomas Harrison. After its completion, it occupied a much larger area than it had done the castle before.

Even today, Chester Castle serves as a courthouse. In addition, it houses the Cheshire Military Museum.