The inner front of the gate has been altered from its original
form in order to secure more accommodation within. The remains of the
Clifford's Tower, which played an important part in the siege, tell of
the destruction caused by the blowing up of the magazine in 1683, an
event which had more the appearance of design than accident. York
abounds with quaint houses and narrow streets. We give an illustration
of the curious Melia's Passage; the origin of the name I am at a loss
to conjecture.
Chester is, we believe, the only city in England which has retained
the entire circuit of its walls complete. According to old unreliable
legends, Marius, or Marcius, King of the British, grandson of
Cymbeline, who began his reign A.D. 73, first surrounded Chester with
a wall, a mysterious person who must be classed with Leon Gawr, or
Vawr, a mighty strong giant who founded Chester, digging caverns in
the rocks for habitations, and with the story of King Leir, who first
made human habitations in the future city. Possibly there was here a
British camp. It was certainly a Roman city, and has preserved the
form and plan which the Romans were accustomed to affect; its four
principal streets diverging at right angles from a common centre, and
extending north, east, south, and west, and terminating in a gate, the
other streets forming insulae as at Silchester.
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