ONCE UPON A MEDIEVAL time every British city needed walls. Most demolished them in less turbulent times, to ease expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but a few cities were far-sighted enough – or simply not wealthy enough – and deferred demolition until it happened that walls suddenly became fashionable again. Nowadays we no longer need them to keep out marauders or exclude rebellious armies but walls do keep a town centre compact and they do make for a great tourist attraction as well.
Nowhere in Britain have city walls been so well preserved as at Chester, a small half-timbered, sandstone city on the River Dee that was a major west coast port in Roman times. The port silted up in the middle ages and is now a famous racecourse beautifully laid out below the city
