THREE CHEERS FOR
CHESTER
Jim Forkin, chair of IWA Chester & Merseyside Branch, celebrates Chester’s success at being named the first Inland Waterways Heritage Port
M
embers of IWA Chester & Merseyside Branch were delighted to be informed in June that Chester had been designated the first Heritage Port on the UK’s inland canal and river system. The scheme, run jointly by the Maritime Heritage Trust and National Historic Ships in the UK, aims to properly recognise long-established but often-forgotten ports that played an important role in the maritime and industrial history of the country. Chester, a port since Roman times and possibly earlier, was put forward by IWA, Chester Civic Trust and Cheshire West & Cheshire Council. They outlined the area’s unique historical development, catalogued its surviving buildings, and evaluated the environmental and heritage features in relation to the criteria laid down in the Heritage Port designation process.
Interconnected system The 21-page application stressed that Chester’s waterways were part of an interconnected system linking the open sea, Dee estuary and non-tidal River Dee with the national canal network and River Mersey via the Shropshire Union Canal. Heritage assets covered both maritime and inland waterway features with a focus on Tower Wharf, Northgate Locks, the Dee Branch of the Shropshire
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Alison Smedley
Union Canal and the adjacent tidal Dee frontage of the old port of Chester. Downstream anchorages on the Wirral side of the estuary were also included. A great deal of the application naturally focussed on the Shropshire Union Canal as it threads its way through the city but the early history of the waterways in Chester, as a result of its position as the highest navigable point for seagoing vessels, was strongly emphasised.
Roman beginnings During Roman times Chester was the busiest port in north-west England, and an old quay wall still remains on the Roodee racecourse today. As a port it grew until around 1700 when silting in the river prevented vessels above 20 tons reaching its wharves. Even the creation of a 16ft-deep navigable channel with associated new warehouses after the 1730s could not prevent the port’s ultimate demise as Liverpool finally grew to be the dominant port in the region. In the 1770s the Chester Canal aimed to boost the port’s importance but the route initially terminated in a dead end at Nantwich and was deemed a failure. In 1795 the Wirral Line of the Ellesmere Canal, which linked to the River Mersey, served to boost Chester’s status, and by 1833 the city was fully linked to the national canal network by the Shropshire Union Canal, which brought trade from the Midlands, the Potteries and Wales. Winter 2021 19/10/2021 11:38
