Edgar's Field

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Edgar's Field, also known as "Kettle's Croft" prior to 1892,(just at the back of The Ship Inn) is the site of the Minerva shrine, in Handbridge, on the south side of the Dee Bridge.

Edgar was Edgar the Pacific – some say he was the first king of all England. You can find his sandstone "gate" just at the other side of the bridge.

The Braun and Hogenberg map of Chester (from around 1581) shows "ruins of the house of the count of Chester" by the River Dee in Edgar's Field . The area below the weir and around the Old Dee Bridge is now known as the "King's Pool". However, before the earldom of Chester passed to the Crown in 1237 it was called the Earl's Pool. A fishery developed at this location because since fish could only pass over the weir at high tide and all fishing had been under the control of the Earl of Chester.

A building in "Kettle's Croft", ruinous by the late 16th century, is supposed in antiquarian tradition to have been a chapel dedicated to St. Mary and belonging to the nuns of Chester. No reference to such a chapel before the Reformation has been found.

The 1875 ordnance survey map shows a "rope walk" in the same location as the "ruins" marked on the Braun and Hogenberg map.

Washington Irving described the maypole nearby in the following words:

• I shall never forget the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It was on the banks of the Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that stretches across the river from the quaint little city of Chester. I had already been carried back into former days by the antiquities of that venerable place, the examination of which is equal to turning over the pages of a black-letter volume, or gazing on the pictures in Froissart. The May-pole on the margin of that poetic stream completed the illusion. My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank with all the dancing revelry of May-day. The mere sight of this May-pole gave a glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day; and as I traversed a part of the fair plains of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales, and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through which "the Deva wound its wizard stream," my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia.

[edit] External links

Edgar the Pacific

Edgar's Field