43 Chester facts, checked against the records

So they were already about a thousand years old when the monks founded the abbey that became the cathedral. Chester's walls have seen everything.

English Heritage says so. Built in the late first century, it had been abandoned, revived and abandoned again centuries before the cathedral's story even began.

Minerva's Shrine was cut in the early 2nd century. It is the only shrine of its kind in Britain still standing where it was made, in Edgar's Field.

No. 39 stands over part of a 2nd century bath house, with an undercroft of around 1300 inside a Victorian building above. Roman, medieval and Victorian, all in one shop.

A Roman quay wall, probably from the 2nd century, still edges the Roodee. The river has moved away, and the horses moved in.

Just 22 years later, in 1092, Earl Hugh refounded St Werburgh's as a Benedictine abbey. That abbey became the cathedral.

Hugh Lupus had it built in 1093 to power the abbey's mills. From the Old Dee Bridge you can still hear it rushing.

The cathedral's north transept, from the 1090s, is Chester's oldest standing church fabric. The Falcon Inn runs it close, with stonework and roof timbers from around 1180.

Its oldest parts date from around 1208, 3 minutes' walk from the Falcon. Two pubs, both older than the naves of most English cathedrals.

The stone Row frontage on Bridge Street dates from around 1200. Eight centuries on, it is still a shop.

The Kaleyard Gate was cut through the walls around 1275, with Edward I's permission, so the monks could reach their kitchen garden. It is still locked every night.

The city hired mason John of Helpston to build it, which makes it one of the best dated medieval buildings in Chester. It guarded a river that has since wandered off.

Built above the Groves in 1363, it was probably an anchorite's cell, home to a recluse formally shut away for life.

Richard II's Letters Patent of 1387 funded the present bridge, and the paperwork still survives. Very few bridges can show their receipt.

They had stood on Northgate Street for about two centuries before Chester built its last great timber town house.

St John the Baptist's, traditionally founded in 689, became the bishop's seat in 1075 and held it until around 1100. Its red sandstone ruins are a 7 minute walk away.

It appears in records by around 1080 as the church of the market place. It is still there, right in the middle of everything.

The oldest surviving arches, from the mid 13th century, are at 28 to 34 Watergate Street. Nobody has found another city that stacked its shops like this.

Cowper House keeps a 13th century vaulted undercroft, the Crypt Building and the Old Crypt sit on stonework of around 1300, and Leche House hides a 14th century one.

King Charles Tower, Thimbleby's Tower (once called Wolf's Tower) and Barnaby's Tower all probably date from the 1200s.

The official record corrects the date you will often see repeated. It was built for Sir Peter Warburton.

The Earl of Shrewsbury built it in 1664, just as brick was taking over. Lady Mary Calveley's brick mansion of 1676, later the Oddfellows Hall, stands just up the same street.

Mayor Henry Gee gave it a documented start, which is why Chester Racecourse can claim nearly five centuries of racing.

The Lower Bridge Street house most likely dates from 1603, the year Elizabeth I died and the Tudors ran out. The Boot Inn's upper floors are mid 17th century, over an altered medieval undercroft.

Morgan's Mount was a 1640s gun platform, and King Charles Tower needed repairs in 1658 after siege damage.

St Peter's east end and south side were rebuilt between 1637 and 1640, giving a Chester church upstairs seating for the first time.

Bishop Stratford founded the charity school in 1700. Its building is a generation older than the bishops' own Old Palace on the Groves, finished in 1751.

The Eastgate came first in 1768 to 1769, paid for by Lord Grosvenor. Joseph Turner's Bridgegate followed in 1781 to 1782 and the Watergate in 1788, by which time its river port had silted away.

In 1810 it was replaced by a new gate designed by the Greek Revival architect Thomas Harrison.

Between 1702 and 1708 a medieval drum tower by the Bridgegate was converted for the new promenade, and Pemberton's Parlour was built as a gazebo on the site of another.

From Row level up it is a grand town house of 1700. Below, the 13th century stonework carries on regardless.

The Eastgate arch went up in 1768 to 1769, but John Douglas's wrought iron clock only joined it in 1899, for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. The arch is 130 years older than its clock.

That is the quiet terrace where your home for the stay stands, inside the Roman walls yet nearly 1,800 years younger than them.

It opened in 1938, its twin towers built for motor traffic, which makes it the baby of Chester's wall gates.

It opened in 1965, closer in age to the 1938 Newgate than most visitors would guess.

It was reborn in 2017 as Chester's theatre, cinema and library. The new Chester Market opened in Exchange Square on 8 November 2022.

Thomas Harrison designed it in 1824, and his great single arch over the Dee was built between 1827 and 1833.

The white footbridge that glows over the river at night carries on a Victorian original.

Grosvenor Park was laid out from 1867 to 1874, Holy Trinity Church (now the Guildhall) went up from 1865 to 1869, and Viscount Combermere rode onto his plinth in 1865.

The early 17th century rebuild, over medieval undercrofts, was heavily restored in the 1890s by T. M. Lockwood, who also designed the Grosvenor Museum of 1885 to 1886.

The Roman Gardens are three, and the cathedral is a gentle eight minutes through the Rows.

The 1664 Bear and Billet and the Falcon, with its 850 year old stonework, are both about three minutes' walk.

The Newgate is 3 minutes away, the Eastgate Clock 6, and even the Watergate on the far, port facing side of the old city is only 15.