Chester's Delightful River Dee!

Have you tried our Talking Tour of Chester? It’s a self-guided walking tour of interesting parts of the city, made from oral histories recorded around 40 years ago. It features local people’s memories of events like the famous Chester Regatta, and the opening of the landmark Queen’s Park suspension bridge - but Cheshire Archives and Local Studies holds a huge amount of material on all aspects of the River Dee, going back centuries.

Lost trades

People have made their living on the river, not only from boat hire that still runs today, but in lost trades such as traditional salmon fishing. These photographs from c.1900 and 1969 show the nets that used to be seen along the banks, and fishermen hauling in their catch.

There also used to be mills along the banks of the Dee, with some only demolished within living memory. This image from 1905 shows ‘The Dee Bridge, Castle and Mills’ and is taken from a photo album by Frank Simpson. He was an authority on the history of Chester and an amateur photographer whose work is held at Cheshire Record Office (not just his photography but also sketches, manuscripts and diaries of local events).

                            

Tragedy on the Dee

Going back even further, we know that people used to use the river for washing. This coroner’s inquest report from 1679 describes the sad death of Mary Alson, a spinster who was swept away and drowned whilst washing clothes in the Dee.

This is just one of countless tragedies from along the river, and the coroners’ reports we hold range from the recent past back to the Middle Ages.

A well-known tragedy was the Dee Bridge Disaster, an 1847 railway accident. Train carriages fell into the river through a new cast iron bridge, killing five people and injuring nine. Cheshire Record Office holds a collection of newspaper cuttings about the inquest, where renowned Victorian engineer Robert Stephenson, who designed the bridge, was accused of negligence.

Chester Regatta

On a happier note, the river has long been used for sport and entertainment, and Chester Regatta combines both. Established in 1733, it still takes place today, making it the oldest rowing regatta of its type in the world. We hold many images of the Regatta - some of which are featured on the searchable Cheshire Image Bank- and this print shows the Regatta in 1854. 

We also hold the archives of the Royal Chester Rowing Club, founded in 1838. A jewel in this collection is a scrapbook begun in 1933 (ZCR 419/3), full of club memorabilia like race programmes, results, press cuttings and photographs. This one is of rowers on the Dee during the Chester Regatta of 1938.


                                        

The Port of Chester

We may not give it much thought today, but Chester used to be a significant British port. We have some shipping and boat records covering several centuries, such as QDN 1/5, a register of vessels entering and leaving the port of Chester, 1740 – 1769. It shows information such as the vessel and masters’ names, the destinations, and nature of goods being transported. We can see from these pages that 15 tons of cheese were bound for Parkgate on The Friendship on 21st February 1743 (below left), and that The Duke William arrived from Lisbon with a cargo of wine on 4th May 1754 (below right).

River Management

For anyone interested in the river itself, we hold archives related to the management of the Dee, like those of The River Dee Committee. The Committee was established in 1837 and its main interest was in Acts of Parliament affecting the river and water supply. The collection includes letters, petitions, reports, a minute book, plans on the improvement of the river and volumes of soundings (measurements of the depth of water, which can be used to make maps of riverbeds and nautical charts). 

Bridges

No visit to Chester is complete without seeing the bridges over the River Dee, and hundreds of items about them are held at Cheshire Record Office: books, pamphlets, photographs, plans, prints and much more. These two images show the Queen’s Park Suspension Bridge that opened in 1923, and the old Queen’s Park Bridge, which it replaced.     

    

The big freeze!

Finally, did you know that the Dee has frozen over on occasion? This photograph of The Groves in Chester shows people ice skating and playing when the river froze during the winter of 1916-17. It happened again in 1963.

This is just a small snapshot of the wide range of material that Cheshire Archives and Local Studies holds about the River Dee. Why not try the Walking Tour, and if you’re inspired to come and see some original records, arrange your visit here!

The items listed above are available to view at Cheshire Record Office in Chester. Living Memory: A Talking Tour of Chester is available via the Echoes app – further details can be found here.

Game, set and match!

With the Australian Open Tennis Championships in full swing and Six Nations Rugby about to begin, we’ve been inspired to look at sport-related items at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies.  We are fortunate to hold archive material from sports clubs across the county, featuring items from athletics to yachting (we don’t have any sports beginning with Z!)  This includes photographs of people taking part in everything from tennis and rugby to early examples of gymnastics and even roller-hockey.  In addition, Cheshire Image Bank is a collection of over 30,000 digital images of Cheshire people, places and events from anywhere that lies, or once lay, within the county boundary.  It can be viewed and searched online at www.cheshireimagebank.org.uk and the web site is a treasure trove for images of sport.

  As tennis and rugby have prompted us to look through our sporting records, here are some Cheshire Image Bank photographs of each of those sports.  They show members of the Alexandrea Park Tennis Club in Hoole, Chester, during the 1930s (reference: P1620) and an early picture of Runcorn Rugby Football Club in the 1890s (ref: C02914).

Football is recognised as this country’s most popular sport, and many people remember photos of their school football team - this one from the Image Bank will surely prompt some memories.  It is of Blacon Junior School football team in Chester, from 1954 (ref: CH 9243).  There are many different football teams featured on the Image Bank and in our archives, but this one comes from Birkenhead Police, taken in 1923 (ref: D 7271).

We hold a much earlier record relating to football as well.  This document (ref: EDC 5/1608/70) is from Consistory Court papers of 1608, and concerns a libel case brought against a John Loram and a John Howell for playing at football in the churchyard at Dodleston on Easter Monday with brawling and fighting.

For those who don’t read seventeenth century English, it is just possible to make out the words football, Dodleston, quarrel and brawl! 

 

 

It could be argued that cricket is the UK’s national sport.  As well as items such as team photographs and fixture lists, our cricket-related collections include these rules from Shrigley Vale Cricket Club in 1872 (ref: D 6265/37). We like rule number five which declares “that no fielder be allowed to lie down, or smoke during a game” as well as rule 10, “that any member swearing, using coarse language, or making himself disagreeable by his conduct on the field, shall be fined sixpence”.  Similar rules and etiquette can be found in some of our golfing records: this handbook from Prestbury and Upton Golf Club in the 1950s recommends the strict observance of a list of “unwritten laws” which “marks the finished Golfer and adds to the pleasure of one and all on the Links” (ref: 229413).

            

Athletics seems to have been popular for many years.  This 1899 programme from the Alexandra Athletics Club of Crewe celebrates their twenty-third annual athletic festival, and shows that the club was founded in 1866 (ref: 221494). We have various photographs of athletes: this early 20th century one is of Middlewich Athletics team - the number of medals some of the members are wearing suggests they were quite successful! (ref: D 7164) 

 

Other team photographs include these from a scrapbook of the Royal Chester Rowing Club (ZCR 419/3).  The one on the left is the club's 2nd VIII taking part in the North of England Head of the River Race in March 1957, on the River Dee.  We also like the one on the right, an old car loaded with a canoe captioned 'Henley 1937'.  Members of the rowing club certainly took part in the Henley Regatta - but whether that car was driven there from Chester, we do not know!

Amongst the records of the Knutsford Gas and Waterworks Company there is archive material related to horse racing at Knutsford.  This race card, giving details of the horses in each race and the jockey colours, is from 1854 (ref: D 4222/25) - and the photograph featuring the racecourse grandstand dates from the 1870s (ref: D 4222/26).

We also have photographs of some more unusual sports.  This is the Neston Quoits Team, photographed in 1895 (ref: D 6278/1).  And the impressive displays on the right (ref: CH1720) are by the Gymnastic Group of the Cheshire Regiment, photographed in 1902.

Along with many early photographs of men’s sports, we were pleased to find some of women’s teams as well.  A favourite is this one taken in 1915, of Widnes Ladies' Swimming Club (ref: C00344).

And finally, this picture taken between 1900 and 1909 is of the ladies roller-skating hockey team at the Empire Rink in Widnes (ref: C00342).  Roller-skating in those Edwardian dresses must have been quite a challenge!

Records relating to a range of sports can be searched in the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies catalogue on our web site at http://catalogue.cheshirearchives.org.uk/calmview/ and can be viewed in our search room in Chester.  And for any local football fans, there will soon be a new exhibition in our search room display case.  From 4th February 2020, it will feature archive material from Chester City Football Club going back to the 19th century.  Why not come in and take a look?