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If anyone is planning on taking a trip around Chester, for historical tours, can I suggest a book by the name of

Chester Inside Out by Gordon Emery.

I have had this book for years and have been flipping through the 96 pages of history, which is so informative. It devides Chester into 4 quarters to follow the trail. Excellent potted history to just about each and every building etc.
Well worth getting one if you can.

Thinking Snowhite and DD might be interested.

https://www.gordonemery.co.uk/booklist/insideout/

That would have been useful when I used to work there. My lunch break was long enough to allow me to walk around the walls. Lovely little city right on our doorstep..with a cheese emporium as well.Just a nightmare on race days.

£6 on Amazon for a secondhand one for those interested.

Its always been too crowded with visitors to be attractive to me, although the last time I was there - about a year ago - it was quieter. The owner of the pub we ate at said it was losing out, big time, to Liverpool 1 which is drawing the shoppers away. There were certainly a few boarded up shops where I would have thought were prime shopping locations.

Quite surprised at L1 being competition for Chester. Maybe its the L1 plus Liverpool itself as a whole day out thing. Maybe more and more young people are attracted to concrete urban shopping experiences rather than cultural historic.. Sitting by the Dee supping a beer or coffee watching the pleasure boats and ducks seems a tadge more attractive than sitting next to the Mersey watching the turds and Mersey goldfish !!

So delicately put fish - agreed though, much much nicer.

There used to be double headed Mersey fish, or was that double headed Mersey ... ....

Does anyone remember ?

Well, Fish. You seem to be in the minority. The crowds have apparently flocked to L1 or somewhere rather than Chester. I suspect that ghastly 'Outlet Village' in Ellesmere Port may have affected the decline too.

You and Granny seems to be stuck in the past regarding the state of the river these days. It is a LOT cleaner than it was, to the extent that it is now perfectly safe to eat shellfish and other fish caught there. This is certainly the opinion of cormorants, seals, herons and a variety of waders that feast there. I live next to it, and have seen the dramatic effect on the wildlife as it happened.

It would be even cleaner if every time it rains, United Utilities didn't allow millions of gallons of untreated sewage to run into the river. Perhaps we need a 'supersewer' that runs along below the Mersey into which the overflow sewers could discharge, like they are building in London below the Thames.

You can't please everyone though. I was talking to an old chap who has always had a boat on the river and he was not happy about the cleanup. When it was so polluted there was little or no life in it, the wood of which his boat was made lasted indefinitely. Now he has to spend time scraping barnacles etc. off it and replacing planks as they get bored into and chewed up by the creatures that have moved into the cleaner waters.

There have only been a few one-off incidents, I think the last one was in 2010, the previous was 2006.

In the 2010 case United Utilities was fined but as far as I am aware, the person who caused the blockage wasn't.

The 2006 was was United Utilities being totally stupid.

Disappointed at that , somehow I had it in my mind that that would be illegal these days .Flipping well should be.

Just had a blimp at details of the new mega sewage pipe you mentioned (was only vaguely away of it) and apparently theres concerns it could end up damaging underground infrastructure and maybe flooding undergrounds etc . Wouldnt like to be the project manager for that scheme. The size of it is mind boggling isnt it , across London, 15miles long, and 24ft diameter.

Hi Ex.. Admittedly been a few years since I last fished at Seacombe Ferry..spending half the night pulling bits of bog roll sanitary towels and the occasional tonky (as we affectionately called them at school) etc from my fishing line. I think the shellfish ban etc was more because of the heavy chemicals rather than the brown stuff.
Agree about Ellesmere Port.....another of my "last places on earth" to visit.

Granny: Not knowingly come across the double headed Mersey fish but can guess what it might have been.

There were deformities, and I vaguely remember two headed fish being mentioned. All to do with sediment , and toxicity of chemicals (I think). Please correct me if I'm wrong
.What have you been eating all these years Fish.

I found this which to be honest I don't really understand, but someone else might do.

http://www.environmentdata.org/archive/ealit:500/OBJ/19001371.pdf

Why do I love wikiwirral ? ....because we start of with a book about guided walks in Chester and end up in the murky waters of the Mersey with all sorts of unmentionables and the environmental problems resulting in deformed fish. They had mouth deformities amongst others(not you Fish but maybe you can translate).

Such fun

Discharges of raw sewage to the Mersey are far from rare. It happens every time there is heavy rain. Under normal circumstances the sewage works can process it but it is simply unable to cope with a heavy downpour or even gentler rain for a long period.

I have seen it being discharged quite often at low tide, but it is quite easy to work out when it happens from the accumulations of - mainly sanitary towels in - quantities several feet thick at high tide; sufficient for the council to send a lorry round to remove it.

It would be good to see it properly cleaned up with NO discharges of sewage, but I think that would be very expensive and is unlikely to happen. The Mersey is a tidal estuary, and the water will always by pretty turbid, especially near the shore where the waves stir up the mud. Out in the middle of the river it is a lot cleaner and as clear as tapwater.

Some great aerial photos of Chester here:

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/n...r-captured-air-stunning-picture-12433605

Lovely pics, Gibbo. Sorry ,only just seen this post.