Our visit to the city of Chester, England, was probably one of the highlights of my travels so far. Chester was founded by the Romans in the 1st century as an outpost to govern the behavior of the people of Britannia! As a result of ongoing excavations, the city is a mix of ancient and modern sites. I went to one museum that recreated what Roman society might have looked like in the 1st century. Along with a collection of very impressive artifacts from the Roman era, the museum actually had excavated sites where you could look down about 8 feet to see different levels of buildings from Roman, Saxon, Medieval and post-Medieval times. It was amazing to see how well preserved the stonework from the Romans was! Apparently, much of the city is built upon layers and layers of ancient history.
Chester is one of the few cities in the world that has an almost complete Roman wall surrounding it. My tour of the city consisted in walking on the wall for nearly 1 mile. This gave me a good vantage point for checking out the sites.
The most magnificent building in Chester is the massive Chester Cathedral. Originally buiilt by the Saxons over 1000 years ago, it eventually became a Benedictine Abbey and, finally, "taken" by King Henry VIII for the new Church of England. Even though it is an Anglican house of worship, there are very many facets of the church which are strikingly Roman Catholic like the tabernacle, altar and statuary. The stained glass windows are brilliant against the vaulted ceilings. Honestly, aside from St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, I have not seen a more spectacular church when it comes to architectural style and artistic arrangement. The "chancel" part of the church, for instance, has choir stalls which were hand carved from wood nearly 800 years ago.
Chester is one of those towns that tourists come to in order to shop. In fact, people come from all over England to browse through the hundreds of shops that are located in medieval structures. The streets were filled with people (it was a warm Saturday) and I enjoyed window shopping until I noticed that the prices of most thing were well beyond my reach! So, I settled on a "smoothie" (cost: $4!)
Next weekend I'll be in Scotland. My blog entry will follow after the first week of June.
Fr. Perry
