Beeston
 Castles |
This small village is comprised of a number of houses and timber-framed cottages clustering around Beeston Hill, and dominated from above by two castles, both of which look ancient but only one of which is.
Beeston Castle, built in 1220 by the Earl of Chester, stands at the highest point on a sheer rockface. Its outer walls enclose a large area honeycombed with caves, and a massive keep rising above every other building. During the Civil War, Royalists under siege in the castle for six months, were eventually defeated in 1645 by the Cromwellian forces; Beeston Castle's military career was, from this date, effectively over. There is, in the turreted entrance, an exhibition referring to the history of the castle. The nearby Peckforton Castle, is a modern mock-medieval folly, complete with genuine looking towers, turrets, arrow-slits, arches and crenellated battlements. Historically accurate to the eye, but without any real history attaching to it.
Two miles to the east of Beeston lies Bunbury, a charming little village of cottages ranging from timber-framed Tudor to Georgian brick. The Church of St Boniface, built in the 14th and 15th cent's, houses a collection of carved alabaster and stone effigies. Bunbury Locks, on the Chester Canal, were built in the 1770's.
To the south of Beeston is Brown Knowl, a village lying next to the impressive Iron Age hill-fort of Maiden Castle. A walk from the village to the castle is rewarded with views across Wales and Shropshire.