The history of Roman Chester

Timeline

1. Before the RomansExcavations under the amphitheatre found traces of Mesolithic people and a Middle Iron Age farming settlement, but there is no evidence of a large town before the fortress.
2. Mid-70s ADThe Second Legion, Adiutrix, begins the fortress. Lead pipes stamped with the name of the emperor Vespasian show building under way by the late 70s. The first defences are earth and timber.
3. Late 1st centuryThe first stone amphitheatre is built outside the south-east corner. Work begins on the Elliptical Building.
4. About AD 88The Second Adiutrix is sent to the Danube. The Twentieth Legion, Valeria Victrix, arrives from Inchtuthil in Scotland and makes Chester its base.
5. From about AD 100The defences are rebuilt in red sandstone, a project that runs for generations. Timber barracks give way to stone.
6. 120sMuch of the legion goes north to build Hadrian's Wall. Parts of the fortress fall quiet, and the amphitheatre is derelict.
7. Late 2nd to 3rd centuryChester becomes the legion's headquarters again. A new Elliptical Building is built on the old one's site, about AD 220.
8. About AD 275The amphitheatre comes back into use, with new paving and a refurbished shrine of Nemesis.
9. About AD 350The amphitheatre is abandoned for good.
10. Late 4th centurySoldiers may have been withdrawn by Magnus Maximus in 383. By about 410 the Roman army has gone from Britain.
11. About 616The Battle of Chester, won by Æthelfrith of Northumbria, probably marks the start of Anglo-Saxon control.
12. 907Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, refounds Chester as a fortified burh and repairs the old walls.

Why Chester?

The Romans chose a low ridge of red sandstone in a bend of the Dee. Below it was a place where the river could be crossed, and a natural harbour where ships could come up from the sea; the river then ran much closer to the town than it does today. From here an army could watch north Wales and control the routes into north-west England.

When was it founded? The dates, honestly

You will see different founding dates for Roman Chester, from AD 70 to 79. The firmest evidence is lead: ingots that show building was under way by about 74, and water pipes stamped with the name of the emperor Vespasian, who died in 79. The safest statement is that the fortress was begun in the mid-70s AD by the Second Legion Adiutrix.

Bigger than a fortress needed to be

At about 25 hectares, Deva was the largest legionary fortress built in Britain in the 70s. Inside it stood the Elliptical Building, an oval courtyard with a fountain and twelve wedge-shaped rooms, unlike anything known elsewhere in the empire. Put together, these led some archaeologists to suggest Chester was planned as a governor’s headquarters, perhaps even as the capital of a province that would one day include all of Britain. Others think the extra space was simply for a larger garrison in a troubled region. The question is open.

Three centuries of the Twentieth

The Twentieth Legion arrived around AD 88 and stayed, on and off, for three hundred years. It was rarely all at home: detachments fought in campaigns and built forts and roads, and in the 120s much of the legion went north to build Hadrian’s Wall, leaving parts of Deva quiet. By the late 2nd century Chester was the legion’s headquarters again.

The end of Roman Chester, and what came next

The Roman army left Britain around 410, and Chester’s garrison may have gone earlier, perhaps with the usurper Magnus Maximus in 383. People did not abandon the place. They went on living inside its walls, and the Anglo-Saxons named it Legeceaster, the city of the legions. The Battle of Chester, around 616, probably brought it under Anglo-Saxon control, and in 907 Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, refounded it as a fortified town and repaired the Roman walls, which is why so much of the Roman plan survives in the streets today.