Information Sheet: King Charles Tower

King Charles Tower is the north-east corner tower of both the Roman and medieval defences. It still retains some of its medieval appearance, although it has been restored several times.

Some of the most spectacular discoveries relating to Roman Chester were made when the section of the north wall from the King Charles Tower to St. Martin's Gate was repaired in the 1880s and 1890s. About 150 Roman tombstones, most of them inscribed to the memory of soldiers of the 2nd or 20th legions, had been used to reinforce the inside of the wall in the 3rd century AD. The stones are now housed in the Grosvenor Museum. Towards the Northgate a short length of the Roman fortress wall still stands to walkway height. This dates from c.90-120, when the Romans built a stone wall in front of the turf bank.

The King Charles Tower is said to have been known at an early date as Newton's Tower, but by the 17th century it was called the Phoenix Tower. In the Middle Ages many watch towers were used as meeting places for the city guilds.

Above the doorway is a plaque carved in 1613, which marks the use of this tower by the Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers and Stationers Company, whose emblem was a phoenix.

On 24 September 1645 King Charles I stood on this tower while his army was being defeated by the Parliamentarians on Rowton Moor, about two miles to the south-east. What he actually saw was not the battle itself but the scattered remnants of his army being pursued through the suburbs. The king later moved to the cathedral tower, where he was narrowly missed by a bullet fired from St. John's Church.

The city was besieged for 18 months from 1644-6 by the Parliamentary forces. Their guns bombarded the defences, causing great damage to the walls, before the city was starved into surrender. The walls remained in ruins until the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714), when they were repaired, although little attempt was made to preserve the medieval details.

With peace and increasing prosperity the walls, no longer needed for defence, became instead a pleasant promenade, and the medieval gates were gradually replaced by new ones on the walls walk.

One of the places visible from the walls is the Deanery Field, which lies in the north-east corner of the cathedral precinct, bounded in two sides by the city walls and overlooked by the King Charles Tower. Starting in 1923 the field was excavated by Professor Robert Newstead, the first Curator of the Grosvenor Museum, who discovered the remains of Roman barrack blocks. Packed within the fortress wall of Roman Chester were more than sixty long barrack blocks, each housing a century of eighty men and their centurion. The barracks in Deanery Field were fed from cookhouses situated inside the northern wall.

In the 20th century new gates have been built to take increased traffic, and today the city walls are a scheduled ancient monument owned by the City Council. The King Charles Tower is currently closed to the public.

References

• A.M. Kennett, (ed.), Loyal Chester: A brief history of Chester in the Civil War period, (1984).
• Simon Ward, Excavations at Chester: Civil War Siegeworks 1642-46, (1987).