IHR Centenary: Hidden Histories
Uncovering Hidden Histories at Chester
Join the Department in marking the Institute of Historical Research’s ‘Our Century’ – a 12-month exploration, celebration and reappraisal of history’s past, present and future.
Uncovering Hidden Histories at Chester: Walking Tours (all free to attend)
Dr Donna Jackson & Jackie Spencer: Walking in the Footsteps of the Beatles: Uncovering the hidden history of Chester in the Swinging Sixties
Date: 10 May
Time: 2-4pm
Liverpool may be synonymous with the Beatles, but Chester too had its part to play in the band’s history. Led by top Blue Badge Guide, Jackie Spencer, this walking tour will take visitors around the city from the railway station to the racecourse and reveal the many ways that Chester featured in the development of the global phenomenon that was the Beatles, uncovering a hidden history of Chester during the Swinging Sixties. Featured sites include venues where the Beatles played, the birthplace of John Lennon’s grandmother, and inspirations for Beatle songs.
Dr Tim Grady: Uncovering Chester’s Hidden Dead of the World Wars
Date: 18 May
Time: 1-2pm
This walking tour sets out to explore the diverse range of soldiers and civilians buried in Chester during the First and Second World Wars. The tour traces a path from the Chester Royal Infirmary building, in which many soldiers lost their lives, to Overleigh cemetery. Although the most visible graves in the cemetery are British, the burial ground also contains the remains of Australian, Belgian, German, Czechoslovakian and Canadian dead.
Prof. Peter Gaunt: Uncovering the post-Restoration ‘urban renaissance’ in Chester
Date: 18 May
Time: 1pm-2.30pm
From the 1970s, Professor Peter Borsay argued for an urban renaissance in the early modern period, beginning in 1660 and ending in the late 1700s. It is claimed that an urban renaissance of this period can be detected in many English provincial towns, including Chester. Evidence can be found in four key areas: its economy; the provision of facilities (parks, bowling greens, race courses, theatres); improvement of public amenities (installing raised pavements, street lighting, regular street cleaning); and refinement of its buildings and architecture. This guided walk re-assesses Borsay’s thesis for Chester, exploring the extent to which its urban environment, surviving buildings, and architectural styles, can reveal a post-Restoration urban renaissance.
Dr Sam Chadwick: Patrolling the Hidden Ramparts - The Hidden History of Chester's Civil War
Date: 25 May
Time: 2pm
This tour will take in the City Walls and some of the surviving fortifications from the English Civil war, and look at some of the key events during the siege.
Towns and cities actually account for the bulk of the fighting during the civil war period. The size mean that they had to have large garrisons to hold them, that they were vulnerable to assaults at multiple points and that any defensive resources would be spread over a large perimeter. On the other hand, they had a large civilian workforce that could provide extra support in the case of breaches and assaults, large areas of dead ground and established infrastructure to produce supplies and repair equipment.
Chester was one of the major cities in England. It was a large trading port, had considerable rights, and was considered the key to Ireland. It had many links to the Crown, initially its allegiance was uncertain until the king visited Chester in autumn 1642. As a major royalist centre, it was repeatedly attacked, blockaded and besieged by the parliamentarians, who eventually captured Chester in early 1646 after a long hard siege.
Dr Tom Pickles: Uncovering Chester’s Viking Past
Date: 27 June
Time: 10am-Midday
Tantalising fragments of historical evidence, some hidden in plain sight around Chester, suggest that the city was a significant place in the Viking diaspore – the places in which Scandinavians raided, traded, conquered, and settled in the ninth and tenth centuries. This tour will take in a series of places through which the story of Viking Age Chester can be uncovered. It will link them to Chester’s patron saint, Werburgh, and some famous Anglo-Saxon rulers – Aethelfflaed, lady of the Mercians, Aethelstan, emperor of Britain, and Edgar, king of the English.
Dr Katherine Wilson: Uncovering an International City: Chester in the Middle Ages
Date: 27 June
Time: 1-3pm
This walking tour sets out to explore Chester as an interconnected and international city in the Middle Ages. The tour will start at the Medieval Water Tower on the city walls, once home to the most important port in the North West and then will move into the centre of Chester itself to explore the homes of Chester’s wealthy merchants. It will finish ‘behind the scenes’ at the Grosvenor Museum to explore some medieval objects with global links found in Chester.
Uncovering Hidden Histories at Chester: Online Talks (all free to attend)
Dr David Harry: The forgotten histories of Cheshire’s witches
Date: 31st May
Time: 7pm
Location: Microsoft Teams
The European witch hunts saw tens of thousands of people, the majority women, charged and executed for supernatural offences. A common pattern among the hunts was the expression of violence against women, often of low status, by powerful state apparatus which believed women would seek to redress their social and economic oppression through diabolic means.
In England, as many as five hundred people were executed as witches and while Cheshire is perhaps less-well known for its role in the hunts than neighbouring Lancashire, the hidden histories of the women brought to answer for charges of witchcraft are revealed in the county’s rich legal records. This talk will introduce some of these sources and explore what they reveal about the interconnectedness of the British and European witch hunts, as well as life in the villages of early modern Cheshire – a world in which conflict and fantasy could quickly escalate into violence.
Dr Morn Capper: The Hidden History of Women in Power: Conversations with Aethelflaed, Leader of the Mercians, queen, carer, coniunx
Date: 7 June
Time: 7pm
Location: Microsoft Teams
Aethelflaed, daughter of King Alfred of Wessex, died in 918 as sole ruler of the Mercian kingdom. One of the first recorded female rulers in England’s history, she led her people in war against Viking armies, was acclaimed as founder of Chester and a network of other fortified towns in the West. She was a builder and strategist, negotiator of Viking migration from Ireland, a general and a diplomat. Yet, for Aethelflaed, expectations of marriage, family and religion were never far away.
Throughout history, women’s leadership has been hidden behind ideas of exceptionalism and even sainthood, rather than ability. This ‘in conversation’ event, explores the myth of Aethelflaed’s exceptionalism, uncovering the hidden history of how a woman in leadership negotiated her burdens and position, to become a queen in power. It encourages the audience to share and reflect on examples of women in leadership, asking why Aethelflaed’s example faded to that of a mythic hero, de-aged in 21st century public imaginings, rather than becoming a genuine role model.
Dr Rebecca Andrew: Uncovering Change in Port Sunlight’s Historic Landscape
Date: 14th June
Time: 7pm
Location: Microsoft Teams
The historic garden village of Port Sunlight was founded in 1888 on the banks of the River Mersey, by entrepreneur William Hesketh Lever (the first Lord Leverhulme), to house his ‘Sunlight Soap’ factory workers. Lever imagined a better way of life was possible for industrial workers, and employed architects to transform his vision into a reality, which included green spaces, recreational facilities, and affordable, sanitary homes in a considered architectural form. The village preceded the Garden City movement by several years, therefore holding a unique, yet under-researched, place in the history of town and country planning.
Now a thriving tourist destination, containing 900 Grade II listed buildings, it is popular with film crews as a backdrop to period dramas. While Port Sunlight’s place identity focuses heavily on its supposedly unchanging and timeless nature, the village has undergone considerable development, change and renewal throughout its relatively short history. This talk challenges popular representations of Port Sunlight, uncovering the place identity Lever originally envisioned, and offering an alternative view of the village.
