Llwyd, the Welsh Antiquary.—Chester Fair.—Tennis Court and Theatre.—The Justing Croft.—The Bars.—Steam Mills.—Ragged Schools.—Boughton and St. Paul’s Church.—The Spital and George Marsh.—Roman Altar.—St. John Street, and Mechanics’ Institution.—Roman Catholic Convent.—St. John’s Church and Ruins.—Jacob’s Well, and the Anchorite’s Cell.—The Groves and the Dee. WHAT a strange old place this CHESTER of ours is! As we retrace our steps under the NORTHGATE and the WALLS, we seem as if roaming through a city of the middle ages; so oddly does everything around us arrest our attention, and “excite our passing wonder.” Those overhanging gables, with darksome pathways burrowed out beneath them, and whose builders were subjects of “Good Queen Bess,”—those two rugged Gateways still marking the course of the old Abbey wall,—the crumbling Abbey itself, more venerable still, and incomparably “richer and rarer” to look upon; these, and yon marvellous Rows, which nobody has ever seen, or ever can see, anywhere but in Chester, afford us ample subjects for contemplation until we arrive at the EASTGATE. The first street we come to on leaving the Gate is ST. JOHN STREET; but, the good old rule of “first come, first serve,” must for once be set aside, since we intend to reserve the locality for the close of the present chapter. Just opposite to St. John Street, is Bank Place; the house at the top of which was long the residence of Richard Llwyd, the Bard of Snowdon, and the author of “Beaumaris Bay,” a zealous, amiable, and intelligent Welsh antiquary. The poet died here in 1835. Moving away eastward, then, past the end of FRODSHAM STREET, already noticed on our way from the RAILWAY STATION, we discern, upon our left, a long passage, leading up to the COMMERCIAL HALL; and, on the right, a heavy block of buildings, one hundred and sixty feet long by ninety-two feet wide, rejoicing in the name of the UNION HALL. These Halls were erected, the former in 1815, and the latter in 1809, by the Lancashire and Yorkshire merchants, who used formerly to inundate the city with their wares during the continuance of the two great Chester Fairs, in October and July. When first built, these “marts of foreign commerce” were always thronged at the privileged season with both buyers and sellers; but the world is wiser than it was; and even the Cestrians have discovered that one of the worst things they can buy is “a pig in a poke;” and that their own tradesmen sell articles every whit as cheap and as good as did those itinerant pedlars. [Picture: Eastgate]