The majority of the buildings are built with their ends to the street, showing gables with the high roof or attic ends, with elaborate decorations, and these afford a fine opportunity for a display of quaint finish. Many of these buildings have a framework of oak, more or less carved, with brickwork fitted into the frame, and plastered and painted, generally with subdued tints. The people are to be commended for the good taste and judgment displayed in their rebuilding; for when a new edifice takes the place of one removed, the new design, while it may increase the height of the stories, and add other real improvements and conveniences, yet preserves the old style. Chester is a lively, bustling, and enterprising business place--a gem in its way. Of course the cathedral comes in for early attention. So long as Charles Kingsley--Canon Kingsley, for here he was made canon in 1869--is remembered, so long will the cathedral be of interest. It is situated in the very centre of the city. Jammed in among other buildings, with no quiet grass and aged trees about it, the pavements lead up to its very doors. It is irregular in outline, dark-reddish-brown in color, aged in appearance, with a massive low tower, but no spire above it. The transept, choir, and nave windows are of monstrous size, not much higher than wide, filled with elegant perpendicular Gothic tracery, and divided into many compartments. The interior is in good repair,--_restored_, as it is termed. Here, as in all cathedrals, there is a stone floor, and hundreds of inscriptions that tell of those who are quietly resting beneath. "Their labors done, securely laid In this, their last retreat, Unheeded o'er their silent dust The storms of life shall beat." The building was originally the abbey of St. Werburgh, built for the Benedictines,--begun in 1095 by Hugh Lupus, assisted by St. Anselm,--and retains its original design.