Within the walls, the city is subdivided by four principal streets, intersecting each other nearly at right angles at St. Peter’s Church, which stands in the centre of the city. These streets retain numerous old timber buildings, which give them an unusual and quaint appearance, and are wider in general than those of cities of equal antiquity. Immediately in front of the church formerly stood the High Cross, which was pulled down and defaced by the Parliamentarians, when they took possession of the city in 1646. The upper portion of this valuable antiquity is still preserved in the grounds of Netherlegh House, though some of the carved figures are a good deal injured. Mr. Pennant is of opinion that St. Peter’s Church, and a few houses to the north and west, occupy the site of the _Roman Prætorium_, with its Court of Judicature and Angulale, where prayers, sacrifices, and other religious rites were wont to be performed. Adjoining the Cross formerly stood that ignominious instrument of punishment, called the _Pillory_. Adjoining the south side of St. Peter’s Church stood the old Pentice, where the magistrates performed their judicial duties, where the sheriffs sat to determine civil causes, and where the Town-office was kept, until the year 1803, when it was removed for the purpose of widening the road into Northgate and Watergate streets, at that time extremely narrow and dangerous. The bench of magistrates was then removed to much more commodious apartments in the Exchange. At the corner of the east of Bridge-street and the west of Eastgate-street, and near to the Cross, there was formerly a small stone building, forming a basin at the top, called the _Conduit_, to which water was formerly brought into the city from St. Giles’s well at Boughton, and thence conveyed to different parts of the city. The Cross used formerly to be the scene of the barbarous sport of bull-baiting, of which the following satirical sketch is given in an old History of Chester:—