Chester Weir And Salmon Leap

CHESTER CITY (EM)

SJ4065 RIVER DEE 1932-1/8/66 Chester Weir and Salmon Leap

I

Weir and former causeway across River Dee. 1093. By Hugh Lupus first Earl of Chester. For St Werburgh's Benedictine Abbey (now Cathedral Church of Christ & the Blessed Virgin Mary, Chester IM). Altered. Sandstone. Continuous weir with sloping spillway of large rectangular stones. 120m long, at an acute angle to the banks and at its north-west end parallel with the bank for 33m, designed to provide the necessary head of water for the medieval Mills of Dee, built and enlarged from 1093 to provide 6 mill-wheels and trains of machinery by 1270; stone salmon leap, altered; leat for later mill, altered, adjoining the south bank. The mills on the north bank were demolished 1910, that on the south bank c1970. HISTORICAL NOTE: the Mills of Dee for which it provided power were amongst the largest and most valuable in England during the C13, the annual rental being 270 pounds. The weir was restored early C20 to serve the City Council's hydro-electric power station, which operated 1913 to 1939, on the site of the former mills. (Cheshire SMR: Collens J: 3008/4/2; History of Cornmilling: Bennet R & Elton J: Some Feudal Mills: Liverpool: 1904-).

Listing NGR: SJ4076765828