Chester Castle has seen many changes and many rebuildings over the centuries whilst still retaining significant historic features. One such is the thirteenth century chapel of St Mary de Castro in the Agricola Tower. Built about 1210 as part of the gatehouse to the inner ward it contained the chapel, which was painted in the latest style in the 1240s. This was presumably part of a series of alterations to extend the residential accommodation in the inner ward and involved blocking the gateway in the Agricola Tower.
The Earldom of Chester, which included the castle, escheated to the Crown in 1237, and in 1241 King Henry III compensated surviving claimants from the late Earl’s family with land elsewhere. Finally in 1246 the Earldom was annexed to the Crown, subsequently being bestowed on the reigning monarch’s eldest son, as it still is.
The decorative scheme of the chapel would appear to reflect the court culture of King Henry III, so well documented in his surviving archives, but of which tragically little survives in situ. The chapel at Chester does at least give us a building and traces of paintwork to begin to imagine what it once looked like.
Work in recent years has exposed the fragmentary remains of the decorative scheme and this has now been studied and a reconstruction created. I first came upon this on the Substack site of The Fake History Hunter which stresses the importance of colour in medieval life, and it can be accessed at The Fake History Hunter (@fakehistoryhunter)
The English Heritage website to which it links, and which discusses the remaining artwork and seeks to reconstruct it, can be found at The Chester Castle Chapel Wall Paintings
The reconstruction of the original scheme in the chapel
Image: English Heritage
The effect created in the reconstruction is not dissimilar to that made by the Arena or Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, painted by Giotto in 1303-05. Wikipedia has a detailed account of that masterwork at Scrovegni Chapel
Wikipedia has an illustrated history of Chester Castle and its buildings which can be viewed at Chester Castle
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