A little higher up than this latter-named Row, we may profitably turn round, and survey, from this slight eminence, the lower part of the Street we have just traversed, together with the curious architecture of the houses in _Shoemaker’s Row_. The scene is a picturesque one, with its oddly-carved beams and overhanging gables, which look as if ready to fall down on the beholder. But in order more fully to impress it on your memory, we present you farther on with a faithful sketch of NORTHGATE STREET, as seen from this point. Onward we go, until an open space upon our left introduces us to the Market-Place of Chester’s famed city. The market for vegetables is held in this area, with no other covering save the “bright blue sky;” but the sale of fish is conducted in that airy looking building, which occupies, we will not say _adorns_, the lower end of the Market-Place. [Picture: Northgate Street] But what is yon new-looking structure, overlooking the Marketplace? _New_, did you say? Why, it is not very far from a couple of hundred years since that building, the EXCHANGE, first delighted the eyes of the old-fashioned citizens. True, the stone-work has been lately restored, and the bricks newly pointed; but practically this is the same EXCHANGE which, in 1698, was completed at a cost of 1000_l._,—Roger Whitley, the then Mayor, being a large contributor. The statue embellishing yonder niche on the south front is a graceful representation of Queen Anne, of glorious memory, in her coronation robes,—a work which must have emanated from no mean chisel. The superstructure of the EXCHANGE stood originally upon four rows of stone columns, the ground floor being otherwise entirely open; but in 1756, just a hundred years ago, owing to some well-grounded fears for the safety of the structure, the lower tiers of shops, &c., were erected, as an extra support to the fabric; the greater portion of these are now occupied as police-offices, lock-ups, &c. On the higher story are the _Assembly Room_, the _Pentice_ or _Council Chamber_, and the spacious _Town Hall_. The _Assembly Room_ was a popular resort in the last generation, when corporation feasts, redolent of venison and primest turtle, were perpetually being discussed there; but it is many a long day since these savoury viands graced the aldermanic board. Oh, for the good old days! The winter Assemblies, too, wont to be held here, are now transferred to more congenial quarters at the Royal Hotel. The _Town Hall_, which is the _Common Hall_ of the city, is a noble apartment, the walls ornamented with full-length portraits of numerous city notables, among whom figure Recorders Townsend, Leycester, Comberbach, and Williams; and Sirs Henry Bunbury, and John Egerton, members for the city, of eminence in their day. Here are held the Quarter Sessions for the city, official public meetings, and the Elections for the city representatives in parliament. Immediately