York versus Chester

"You only go on the walls to see the historical context. In Chester, the city walls are town walls. People use them to get from A to B. You know you're not going to get knocked down by a bus!"

Don't get me wrong. Gerrie loves York and thinks it is a beautiful city. It's just that he loves Chester more - as you'd expect of a man who has been a tour guide there for nigh on 30 years.

He landed up in Chester by mistake. After studying history at Dublin's Trinity College, he took the ferry across the Irish Sea to Holyhead, determined to make his fortune in London.

"You got off the ferry, and they poured you on to the train," he says. "They said 'first stop London'." So he got off the at the first stop, and promptly fell in love with the city he found himself in. It was only three days later he discovered it wasn't London at all, but Chester. He's been in the city ever since.

There's probably a wee bit of Irish blarney in that tale - but it's what helps make Gerrie a great tour guide. He's one of several professional Blue Badge guides employed by Chester City Council to help visitors get the most out of their time in the historic city. And a stroll around the ancient city walls of Chester with him is a delight.

I've come to Chester to walk the walls and see what York could learn in terms of making its own walls more accessible. My mission follows outspoken criticism of York by English Heritage.

The two cities have much in common. Both were major Roman towns, both were strategically important in the Civil War between Charles I and Cromwell, both have retained much of their historic charm - and both have impressive city walls remaining to this day.

So how do the two sets of walls measure up?

One of the most noticeable differences is that the Chester walls make a virtually complete circuit of the city. You can walk all the way around without having to climb down and then back up again, as in York.

Part of the reason for that, Gerrie says, is that in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Chester walls became a fashionable promenade.

Badly damaged during the siege of Chester in 1645 and 1646, they remained in a poor condition for a century and a half. But then the walls were repaired and restored so wealthy men and women could parade around, to see and be seen by fashionable society.

It's a tradition of use that continues today. The walls are used as pavements by tourists and locals alike - sightseers out with their cameras, young mums with armfuls of shopping, office workers using them as a short cut home.

Because there are so many places where you can get on and off, the walls make perfect short cuts from one part of the city centre to another. And regular streetlights and railings along the entire length make the walls safe for pedestrians - even at night when, unlike York's bar walls, they remain open.

"I suspect an awful lot of people who live in the city take a short cut along the walls without even thinking that they are on the walls," admits Eileen Wilshaw, Chester's heritage manager. "They do have a very practical view of them."

None of which lessens their beauty or historical value. These are 'pavements' that offer lovely views over the city and the hills to the south and a fascinating glimpse into Chester's past.

The city council has gone all-out to help visitors and locals alike enjoy them to the full. A few years ago, ramps were added so people in wheelchairs or mums with prams could get up. They can't go all the way around, but substantial sections of the wall are open to them.

The walls' fascinating history is brought to life, too, by the series of 20 or so information plaques placed at strategic points around the circuit. Each is made of zinc, with a relief map of the walls and information and illustrations carved in bas relief - great for children who want to make brass rubbings.

There are tourist maps readily available to help the enterprising visitor get the most out of a solo stroll around the walls. But if you really want to bring them to life, a Blue Badge tour is a must.

I couldn't have chosen a better guide than Gerrie, who has an inexhaustible fund of stories as he leads me on the two-mile circular walk.

The Chester walls are made of the local warm red sandstone, which gives them a very different appearance from York's fortifications.

"You can still see pebbles in the stone," says Gerry, caressing the surface of a length of wall down by Kaleyard's Gate. You can, too - a record of a time immeasurably older than Roman Chester, when the stone that now makes up the walls was the floor of a shallow sea.

Kaleyard's Gate is an opening in a section of wall close to Chester Cathedral. Before it was a cathedral, back in medieval times, it was an abbey, Gerrie explains. Some of the monks won a special dispensation to open a gate through the walls so they could go and tend the kitchen gardens on the other side. By law, they had to close the gate at night so the walls remained secure. There is still a notice on the studded wooden gate today saying the gate will close at 9.05pm "by order of the dean and chapter".

Just beyond the gate is an area, now a car park, once used for archery practice.

"It is thought," says Gerrie in his soft Dublin accent, "that the archers of Agincourt practised their archery in this exact location." He bobs his head and chuckles with delight.

Further round is the "bridge of sighs" - a narrow stone footbridge leading from the walls across the Shropshire Union Canal. It was so called because condemned prisoners were led out of the city across it on their way to the gibbet, Gerry says.

Nearby is Northgate - a neo-classical arch replacing a fortified medieval gateway that, until 1807, doubled as the city jail. On Northgate itself there is a delightful bookshop - and not far away, down some steps, a small courtyard with a restaurant, bric-a-brac shops and a jazz bar.

It's typical of the Chester walls. The medieval gate along with others elsewhere around the walls might have gone. But to make up for that you have a feeling that these walls are really a part of the city - and not just, in Gerry's words, a museum.

York's walls have their own beauty. Unlike Chester, points out city archaeologist John Oxley, there never was a complete circuit. Walls were impossible in the marshy area around what is now Foss Islands Road, and were not needed by Clifford's Tower.

And, unlike Chester again, York retains its four principal medieval gates, or bars.

But there are lessons that York can learn, John accepts. In the past decade, the emphasis has been on preserving the walls. Now, however, that is changing. A consultation will begin next year on how access to the walls can be opened up - covering everything from whether there should be ramps for disabled people to what kind of signs should be put up, and where.

Perhaps, before you're asked to give your comments, it might be worth paying a visit to Chester to see what's possible.

Fact file:

Blue Badge walking tours of Chester city walls set off twice a day. Price: adults £3, children and concessions £2.50. Alternatively, book a guide for a private tour, price £48 for one and a half hours, for parties of up to 25. To find out more, call 01244 402445. For general tourist information about Chester, call 01244 402111.

Updated: 09:01 Saturday, October 05, 2002