Water Tower
This Tower - originally known as the New Tower - dates from 1322 when John de Helpeston, a mason, was paid �100 to build a round tower and spur wall from the corner of the northern and western City Walls. Above the base are two rooms, both octagonal, and in the lower room are deep recesses leading to arrow slits. 
Built in brown sandstone, 72 feet high and surrounded by the waters of the River Dee, it was designed as a defensive strongpoint against attack. It had a fighting platform built over the eastern entrance preventing raiders from scaling the wall and entering the city.
The Water Tower was probably used to monitor shipping in and out of the Port of Chester and collect tolls on the vessels and their merchandise. Imported goods such as wine and spices, glass and pottery came into Chester from all over the world. By the 15thC however, the gradual silting up of the Dee left the Tower surrounded by marshland,where the victims of the plague were housed in small cabins in the 1600s. 
In the Civil War the Water Tower was fiercely attacked during the Siege of Chester from 1644 to 1646. The Parliamentarian troops employed artillery to bombard the battlements from a farmhouse on the opposite side of the river and the marks where the musketballs struck the stonework can still be seen. 
In 1838 the Water Tower was used as a Museum by the Mechanics Institute and in 1849 the Chester Baths and Wash Houses were erected at the foot of the steps. A staue of Queen Anne which once occupied the niche on the steps had been rescued from the Exchange when it burnt down in 1862 but vanished in the 1960s.