Present Day
The complex is entered from Grosvenor Road through the Propylaeum, a Grade I listed building. This consists of a massive entablature supported on widely-spaced (areostyle) Doric columns, flanked by temple-like lodges. Directly ahead is the former Shire Hall (also listed Grade I) which now houses the Crown Courts. Its façade has 19 bays, the central seven bays of which project forward and constitute a Doric portico. To the left is the former barracks block which is now the home of the Cheshire Military Museum. To the right is the block which was originally an armoury and later an officers' mess. Both blocks are in neoclassical style and are listed Grade I.
Further to the right are the remains of the Norman castle. The Agricola Tower is a Grade I listed building. It is built in sandstone ashlar with a metal roof in three storeys. The ground floor has a blocked gateway and to the right of the gateway is a slightly projecting stair turret. Internally, the ground floor consists of a crypt, and the first floor contains the chapel of St Mary Castro. The Agricola Tower is also a scheduled monument. The chapel is still consecrated as the regimental chapel of the Cheshire Regiment. Its ceiling is covered with frescos dating from the early part of the 13th century which depict the Visitation and miracles performed by the Virgin Mary which were revealed during conservation work in the 1990s.
To the south and the west, the curtain walls, which include the Halfmoon Tower, the Flag Tower and the gun emplacement, are listed Grade I. Other walls within the castle complex are listed Grade II. These are the retaining walls and the railing of the forecourt designed by Thomas Harrison, and two other areas of the medieval curtain walls. In the castle courtyard is a statue of Queen Victoria dated 1903 by Pomeroy. The inner bailey is managed by Cheshire West and Chester Council on behalf of English Heritage.
Read more about this topic: Chester Castle
Famous quotes containing the words present day, present and/or day:
“The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,—do you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your mind than your brother or your child.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Anonymous Mother of Four. As quoted in Women of a Certain Age, by Lillian B. Rubin, ch. 2 (1979)