The 'modern' Chester Cathedral

The word on the street is that the present Chester Cathedral is built on the site of the Roman Temple of Apollo which was, in turn, built upon an ancient Druid place of worship. The grounds of the Cathedral do occupy a large chunk of the centre of the Roman city of Deva and must obviously 'hide' a great part of the city's history. It's a pity it is not McDonalds, it could have been knocked down and excavations started on Tuesday.. Hey! I'm just kidding! There's as Big Mac opposite and the staff are very nice!

When Christianity arrived in Chester, around 200AD or thereabouts the missionaries already knew that a good place to build their churches was on the sites of existing or previous places of worship. I hesitate to use the term 'Pagan sites' as a thousand years hence Christianity might be considered 'pagan'.

By 875AD the church of St. Peter and St. Paul was well established within the walls of Chester. The nuns of nearby Repton were looking for somewhere to hide the sacred remains of Werburgh, daughter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia from the invading Danes and headed for Chester where they interred her remains in the church.

In 907AD Alfred the Great's daughter re-dedicated the church to St. Werburgh and St. Oswald. Unfortunately you will find no trace of this church today.

70 years later a monastery was founded and dedicated to St. Werburgh and St. Oswald and when the Normans dropped by they made a few alterations. They started building in 1092 and within a few hundred years the lowly Saxon church was transformed into a grand Benedictine monastic centre.

Parts of this Norman building can still be seen.

By the time we reach the 16th century the monks of the monastery are ruling the roost big time. Great halls have been built on church lands. The Abbot is king in his domain! The power of the church was virtually absolute.

Until 1540 that is, the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries put an end to the tyranny and promptly replaced it with another - but hey! That's life! Henry VIII is credited with this totally but I do wonder if he was not actually jumping on the popular band-wagon of the day and just turning it to his advantage, as do the modern day politicians.

So, the Monastery at Chester is effectively destroyed but the abbey church survived. It was transformed into a cathedral with the 25th and last Abbot, one John Clarke becoming the 1st Dean on August 4th 1541. He died in September 1541!

It is interesting to note that in 1538, prior to the Reformation (possibly indicating that Henry may not have been the sole cause of the Roman church's problems), that the monks, that did not move into the cathedral as members of staff, received a full pension and 6 months up front as a lump sum! With the current trend in banking greed and political ineptitude I do wonder just how many citizens will receive a pension 500 years down the line in 2038.

It is now 1541 and Chester has it's first 'official' cathedral - Take a look at it, in the 21st century, try to imagine the history that went before.