See The Oldest, Longest, & Most Complete City Walls In England

Chester City Walls are the longest, oldest intact walls in Great Britain. The oldest parts were built by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago.

CHESTER CITY WALLS

While the Spanish city of Lugo is home to the most impressive, mostly intact Roman city walls, the quaint English city of Chester also boasts nearly complete ancient city walls. Chester is a small English city near the Welsh border and is famous for its stunning Tudor architecture, like the Chester Rows and for being one of the best places in England to see Roman ruins.

The Chester City Walls are famous for being the longest, oldest, and most complete walls in Great Britain. The oldest parts of the walls were built by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago. Today they are one of the key attractions to the charming medieval city of Chester (a must for anyone visiting England).

 

CHESTER CITY CENTRE FROM ABOVE

ROMAN ORIGINS OF THE CHESTER WALLS

Chester was built around 70 to 80 AD as a Roman fort called Deva Victrix (the very name 'Chester' is from 'castrum', the Latin word for fort). Like so many other cities in the Roman Empire, the town grew up around the Roman fort. Soon it was needed to protect the settlement.

 

• First Built: 70-80 AD (Earliest Roman Earthen Works)
• Extended: 10th Century By The Saxons
• Rebuilt: 12th Century By The Normans
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At first, an earthen rampart was built surmounted by wooden palisades. But this was later placed with a wall built out of sandstone. The rebuilding of the walls was abandoned for a prolonged period of time. This more durable wall was not actually completed until around 100 years later.

 
For the rest of the Roman presence in Britain, the walls continued to be in use and to be maintained by the Romans. The Romans had arrived permanently in Britain in AD 43 (Julius Caesar had raided Britain almost a century prior), and they left as the Western Roman Empire declined in AD 410.
 

They were damaged during the English Civil War. Soon after that, they were made obsolete by the ever-changing art of war. They were then developed for recreation and leisure as they became fashionable during the 18th century.