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³⁰ There were travelling players in Chester from the 1530s – Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 118Google Scholar – and regular performances by 1692: Kennert, A. (ed.), Georgian Chester (Chester, 1987), 36.Google Scholar

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³⁴ Willshaw, , ‘Inns of Chester’, 43–51.Google Scholar

³⁵ There were two newspapers from 1775: Kennett, , Georgian Chester, 38.Google Scholar In terms of newspapers, Chester lagged about twenty years behind towns like Norwich and Exeter, but compared favourably with regional neighbours: Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 129–30.Google Scholar

³⁶ Kennett, , Georgian Chester, 39.Google Scholar Chester was also prominent in the growth of provincial printing: Stewart-Brown, R., ‘The stationers, booksellers and printers of Chester’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 83 (1952), 101–52.Google Scholar

³⁷ Broster, , Chester Guide, 27Google Scholar. The Roodee also formed a favourite walk for Chester residents; for example, see Addy, J. (ed.), ‘The diary of Henry Prescott, LLB’, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 127 (1987).Google Scholar Horse racing regularly took place at twenty-two other venues in Lancashire and Cheshire: Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 356–7 and 360.Google Scholar

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³⁹ Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 351Google Scholar and Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 41Google Scholar, list only one walk, putting Chester on a par with, inter alia, Preston, Liverpool, Leeds and Nottingham. However, by 1770, there were two walks and two parks plus the Roodee, making Chester the equal of Exeter, Shrewsbury and Norwich.

⁴⁰ Using the city walls as a promenade was common throughout Europe, but, particularly in England where many towns had lost their walls by the early modern period, it was more usual for walks to follow the line of the walls rather than run along the top of them: Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 38Google Scholar. Money was spent on improving the surface, removing obstacles such as Saddler's Tower and Goblin's Tower, and so on: Carrington, , Chester, 102.Google Scholar This was funded by a murage duty levied on Irish linen coming into the city: Broster, , Chester Guide, 14.Google Scholar

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⁴⁷ Definitions of ‘leisure’ and ‘leisure-oriented’ are problematical. The groupings used here are based on McInnes, ‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 84–5, and are laid out in detail in Appendix 1.

⁴⁸ These occupation counts are based on Freeman admissions: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 51 (1906) and 55 (1908).Google Scholar They tend to overemphasize the professional and leisured classes, but, as McInnes (‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 54–65Google Scholar) demonstrated, the overall trends are correct.

⁴⁹ Leather working remained far stronger in Chester than in Shrewsbury, but textiles production collapsed in the first half of the eighteenth century: Woodward, D., ‘The Chester leather industry’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 119 (1968), 65–111Google Scholar; Phillips, and Smith, , Lancashire and Cheshire, 36–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ This ‘de-industrialization’ stands in marked contrast with the industrial and commercial growth seen in southern Lancashire, although it seems likely that a similar process occurred in Preston, at least until the later eighteenth century: Ibid., 88–98 and 169–81.

⁵¹ Reed, , ‘Cultural role of small towns’, 133Google Scholar; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 41–113.Google Scholar

⁵² McInnes (‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 56 and 60) records a fall in the number of merchants and even his Frankpledge lists show only the most marginal growth. Chester had evidently developed a sizeable retail sector well before the period studied by Young, C. and Allen, S., ‘Retail patterns in nineteenth century Chester’, Journal of Regional and Local Studies, 16, 1 (1996), 1–18.Google Scholar

⁵³ Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 83.Google Scholar

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⁵⁵ Adams Weekly Courant, 5 07 1785.Google Scholar Whilst this was not the product advertising which receives so much attention in studies of consumption (see, inter alia, Fine, and Leopold, , World of Consumption, 219–26Google Scholar), it is apparent that advertising was important to many traders. Certainly, adverts in the local press long pre-date the developments noted by Young, and Allen, , ‘Retail patterns’, 12–15Google Scholar and suggest the early emergence of a sophisticated and customer-aware retail sector.

⁵⁶ Poole's Catalogue of 1792 (Chester, 1792).Google Scholar

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⁷⁷ CCRO, A/B/3/163v; CCRO, A/B/3/264v. The volume of work was considerable and several schemes were carried out by private contractors: CCRO, A/B/3/264v.

⁷⁸ CCRO, A/B/2/156v; CCRO, A/B/2/169v. Similar arrangements were made in Leicester (1686), Hereford (1694) and Lincoln (1707): Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 70.Google Scholar

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⁸² CCRO, TCC/WP/65.

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⁹⁷ CCRO, A/B/4/99V and many subsequent entries. Further from the centre, on Lower Bridge Street and the bottom of Watergate Street, enclosure was permitted, normally on payment of a fine for the loss of the row: Carrington, , Chester, 94.Google Scholar

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¹⁰¹ CCRO, A/B/4/25.

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¹⁰⁶ CCRO, CR 658/58.

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¹⁰⁹ Ibid., 417. The early nineteenth century also saw decay in some areas, notably the lower reaches of Watergate Street: Herson, , ‘Victorian Chester’, 17.Google Scholar

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