Sick To Death

Explorer Tom Chester Castle sits close to the city streets, yet its surviving Agricola Tower still asks you to imagine a far larger fortress. Up the stairs is a small chapel with old wall paintings. Tom says the tower was named for a Roman general who arrived nine centuries too early; a medieval builder would have enjoyed the confusion. William the Conqueror founded a castle here around 1070. The tower became a stone gateway in the thirteenth century, and its upper chapel of St Mary de Castro keeps remarkable painted walls from about 1240. Later rebuilding changed much of the castle site, leaving this piece of medieval fabric beside the city's legal buildings. The name 'Agricola' recalls Roman Chester but does not turn the tower into a Roman building. The wall-walk shows how the castle's position related to the city and the river. Its modest scale today can make the earlier stronghold easy to underestimate. English Heritage opens the Agricola Tower and castle walls on selected weekend days from spring to autumn, subject to volunteers. Check the exact current opening before making a special journey; entry on open days is through the law courts car park. Expect steps and uneven surfaces. Inside, look carefully at the chapel paintings without touching the walls. The site is small enough to see slowly, and its relationship to the surrounding streets helps make sense of what has gone. Tom has now promoted himself to castle gatekeeper. Do not give him the keys. The little surviving tower is enough to open a much bigger chapter of Chester's past.