We slept quite well again. We had not set an alarm as we were on no specific timetable that day and figured that we would be awake quite early anyway. This turned out to be accurate as we were awake just before 08:00. We got up, took turns having a shower and then headed downstairs for breakfast. We are creatures of habit. We both had coffee and orange juice. Graham had yoghurt with berry compote followed by a cooked breakfast. I had some granola again, but they had almond milk that day and I had just normal milk with this. I then had baked beans, sausage, and hash brown. After breakfast, we packed our few odds and ends. Then we headed downstairs to check out.
Our plan for this day was to do a Mystery Guide. We decided that once we had checked out, we would sit down in the lobby to plan out our route. The lobby was airconditioned. I had looked at the booklet the day before an found that clue number 5 was at Chester Racecourse. As our hotel was right there, it made sense that we started there, work our way back to clue one and then pick up the normal order at clue 6. It turned out that doing it this way added a whole extra challenge to the scavenger hunt. The clue that was labelled as Chester Racecourse involved a statue of a horse and rider. This made sense. Chester Racecourse is officially recognized as the oldest still operating racecourse in the world. It was founded in 1539. I expected that the statue would be near the main entrance to the racecourse, which was right round the corner. However, there was no statue there. We walked along the outside of the racecourse and in the end, we found the statue near a roundabout on toad leading to the racecourse rather than at the racecourse itself. The clue itself was relatively straight forward.
The next clue was named Chester Castle, but was actually located outside the old county hall, which is now part of Chester university. This was right across from the first clue we tackled. This one did not tax the brain cells too much either. After this, we had to navigate a rather steep hill down to the bank of the river Dee. At this stage, I was very glad that we were doing this in reverse. It was much preferable to go downhill then uphill. I had been to Chester a number of times before, but I had never been to this area, and the riverside walk is rather pretty. The clue was quite hard to find, but once we had found the right location, t was very straightforward.
Next up were the Roman Gardens, which again were new for me. At the end closest to the river, they were just pretty gardens. However, further up were a number of Roman artifacts including some Roman underfloor heating. This was fascinating to see. Near the exit as the other end was an intricate mosaic which was installed by the Chester Civic Trust. This was the clue for that location. It was also rather pretty. There were some shaded benches near the mosaic. We sat down for a bit. We bumped into a family who were also doing the Mystery Guide. They asked if we had found the first clue. We explained that we were doing things in an unusual order and had not got there yet. We were however warned.
Once we had cooled down a little, we decided to tackle the first clue. This was located at the Roman amphitheatre, which was just across the road. The Roman amphitheatre at Chester was the largest in Britain. There have been two stone-built amphitheatres on the site, which were used for entertainment and military training. This was a relatively recent discovery with a major excavation of the site taking place in 2005. The artefacts that were found during this excavation are on display in the Grosvenor Museum in Chester. About two fifth of the original amphitheatre is visible today with a lot of the stone having been repurposed for the city walls and a significant portion of what is left being located underneath the modern city. Still, what is visible is giving a good overview of what the amphitheatre would have been like. I most certainly found it fascinating. The clue however was infuriating. It asked to scale the heights of the amphitheatre and said that there were wooden benches with five messages. We had entered the amphitheatre from the top and could not find anything of the sort. Fortunately, I wanted to take some photos from a different perspective. Outside the amphitheatre itself was a model of what the complete amphitheatre would have looked like. Near that model where five wooden benches that had some writing carved into the edge of the seats. This was what we were looking for all along. Once we had found this, the clue itself was easy to solve.
After this, we went via the most direct route to clue 6. From this point onwards, we followed the clues in the direction they were intended. Clue 6 took us to the centre of Chester and to solve it, we needed to have a close look at one of the half-timbered houses that this city is absolutely stuffed with. A lot of them have very intricate details that were used for various clues and that otherwise I may never have noticed.
The next clue could be found in The Rows. The Rows are two-tiered timber-framed galleries that line the main streets of the city. They are home to pubs, restaurants, cafes together with quirky independent shops. The Rows are unique to Chester, and their precise origins are unknown. Various theories have been put forward, but no one really knows. One suggestion is that they were constructed on top of the rubble remaining from Roman times. Modern Chester was once the Roman fortress of Deva and much of the stonework remained a thousand years after it was built. Another idea is that medieval townsfolk wanted to improve the retail potential of their properties and being restricted by the Roman walls surrounding the city were forced to build store fronts vertically to maximise space and profit. A further theory is that they were built for security against Welsh raiders. The Rows probably began to develop in the late 13th century. Whatever the original purpose behind them, they are a real gem. We did explore the area a little once we had solved the clue.
After this came the first pub stop, which was Ye Olde Boot Inn. The pub dates back to the first part of the 17th century. It is located in a listed building that consists of a shop occupying a former under croft at street level, with the pub being at the level of the Rows and above. This was pretty hard to find. It did not help either that a lot of refurbishment work were going on in this area. The access to the pub was blocked off. I am not sure if the pub itself was closed or if there was an alternative access. We never took the time to find out. We were however ready for something to drink and stopped at a nearby Caffè Nero. I had an iced tropical matcha latte and Graham had an iced strawberry matcha latte. Then we picked up the trail again.
Next up was a clue in the cathedral grounds. We paused the treasure hunt once more as I really wanted to have a look at the cathedral. The cathedral, formerly the abbey church of a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Werburgh, is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since 1541, it has been the seat of the bishop of Chester. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building. Construction started in the 10th century and carried on until the early 16th century. All the major styles of English medieval architecture, from Norman to Perpendicular, are represented in the present building. This makes this a very interesting cathedral.
The cathedral as plenty of quirky features including misericords in the choir. They date back to 1380 and feature all kinds of creatures including hounds, angels, dragons, and maidens carved into the woodwork. However, the carvers employed some artistic license. One elephant appears to have a horse’s hooves for feet. There are also creatures that featured human heads on bodies of various animals.
Some altogether more modern art is the model of the cathedral that is made from 275,000 Lego bricks. This took 8 years to create and was completed in 2023. It even has stained glass windows made from Lego.
Another quirky feature are the Victorian cast-iron finned radiators that are dotted around the cathedral. They are still in use today even though the cathedral also has underfloor heating, which was installed in 1999.
After this, we retraced our steps down St. Werburgh’s Street, which is full of beautiful half-timbered houses, too. Then we came to the Eastgate Clock. The Eastgate clock is one of Chester’s most famous landmarks. It is the second most photographed clock in the UK after Big Ben. It is where the original entrance to the Deva Victrix fort was located. It was built to celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897 but was only installed in 1899. I can understand why it is photographed so frequently as it really is beautiful.
After this, we had to climb the city walls. Some of the views up there were stunning. We had to look for golden coins. This was fiendishly difficult. We found a round plague early on, but this was the only one we found, and this did not correspond to anything on the map. Then we spotted tiny round brass markers, and this corresponded to the clue. I backtracked to find the ones I had missed. They were put there by English Heritage and apparently there is one about every 25 metres, but I could not find out if they have any special meaning.
It was very hot up on the city wall and I was glad when we headed back to ground level. The remaining clues were relatively close together. One clue we could not get anywhere near to as this was on the door to the city hall and there was a wedding party taking photos in front of this. We did come across some more interesting Roman artefacts including a Roman column and a viewing window into a Roman strongroom. The actual clue was outside a pub round the corner, but it was nice for this to be included.
We ended up near The Rows again for the final reveal. This is where I was overthinking things somewhat. Up to this point when we had done a Mystery Guide what was left once you had eliminated all the red herrings apart from the person who committed the crime pointed you to the location of the final reveal. We had one animal and one location left apart from the suspect. The location, Watergate, is a substantial street in the centre of Chester. This made sense. I figured that there would be a pub with the word bull in its name. That turned out to be not the case. I gave up and then realised that there was a pub called the Watergate. This turned out to be the location of the final reveal and was almost right next to the final clue.
Once we solved the mystery, we figured it was time for something to eat. There was a Bella Italia restaurant nearby and this sounded good to both of us. We both had some tap water. Graham had spaghetti carbonara and a passion fruit soda. I had beef and red wine tortellini and orange sherbet cooler. This hit the spot.
Once we had our late lunch, we were done. I had a booked a train for around 19:00, but with it being so hot, we had run out of steam. We decided to head to the station. The station is a fair way from the city centre. Fortunately, we did not go very far when we realised that there is a bus to the station. We decided to take the bus. We had just missed one, but even with a bit of a wait, this beat walking all the way.
Getting new tickets did not break the bank. Again, we had just missed a train. We bought our tickets, headed to the platform and found somewhere to sit down. The end, there was a significant delay for the train, and it picked up a further delay on the way. Once we could get on the train, we were not bothered as we were happy to just sit and the air-conditioning was nice. Because we ended up being delayed by an hour by the time we reached Manchester, we actually got a refund on our tickets. When we finally reached Manchester, we took the tram home and then we just relaxed for the rest of the evening.
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