Chester visitor guide
Chester with Kids
A zoo that takes a whole day, a Roman amphitheatre they can walk into, and two miles of wall to run along. Chester is easier with children than most historic cities.
Historic cities are often a hard sell to anyone under twelve: a great deal of looking at things and being told not to touch them. Chester is a genuine exception, and for a specific reason — the history here is walkable rather than displayed. You do not look at the walls through glass, you walk on top of them for two miles. You do not see a model of an amphitheatre, you stand in the middle of one.
Add the largest zoo in the country twenty minutes north and an aquarium ten minutes east, and the problem stops being what to do and becomes how much to attempt in one trip. The honest answer: the zoo is a whole day on its own, and everything below is what you do on the other days.
Chester Zoo: budget a full day
Chester Zoo is the most-visited wildlife attraction in the United Kingdom, and the scale is the thing people underestimate. It was founded in 1931 by George Mottershead, holds close to 30,000 animals across more than 500 species, and the public area covers around 130 acres. It is at Upton, about three miles north of the city centre.
Two pieces of practical advice that matter more than anything else. First, this is a full day — arriving at two in the afternoon means seeing perhaps a third of it, and small legs give out long before the map does. Second, book ahead in school holidays and on any warm weekend; it sells out.
The zoo is not in the city, so if you are staying inside the walls you will need the bus or the car. It is worth structuring the trip around it: zoo one day, city the next.
In the city
The walls, which are free and count as an adventure
The complete circuit is 2.95km — just under two miles — of walkway on top of the walls, and children treat it as a castle rather than a monument. It is free, there is no ticket to buy and no queue, and you can join or leave it at any of the gates. Forty-five minutes to an hour for the full loop, but the stretch from the Eastgate round to the Northgate is the best short section and takes about fifteen minutes.
Two warnings. There are drops, and in places the parapet is low — this is a medieval wall, not a viewing platform, so hold hands with anyone small. And a few sections have steps or steep ramps.
The Roman amphitheatre
Just outside the Newgate, and much the best free thing in Chester for children. It is the largest Roman amphitheatre found anywhere in Britain — 95.7 by 87.2 metres, built for eight to ten thousand spectators in the late 70s AD — and you can walk into the arena and stand where the fighting happened. Only the northern half has been excavated, which leaves plenty to imagine. English Heritage look after it, it is open, and it costs nothing.
Deva Roman Experience
Down Pierpoint Lane off Bridge Street, and the right answer for a wet morning or a child who wants to handle something rather than look at it. It is a reconstructed Roman street with excavated remains underneath, aimed squarely at families, and it is indoors.
The river at the Groves
The single most reliable afternoon in Chester with children, and the one locals actually use. Rowing boats and pleasure-boat trips go from the Groves, there is a bandstand, ice cream, ducks, and the Queen’s Park suspension footbridge of 1923 bouncing gently underfoot as you cross it — which is, for most children, the best bit. The walk along the river from the Old Dee Bridge to the Groves is flat, pushchair-friendly and shaded.
Grosvenor Park
Twenty acres laid out by Edward Kemp in 1865 and opened in November 1867, restored in 2014, running down towards the river beside the Groves. There is a playground and a miniature railway that runs in season, and in summer the park hosts open-air theatre. It is the natural place to let everyone off the leash for an hour between other things.
Grosvenor Museum
Free, small enough not to exhaust anyone, and stronger with children than it sounds. The Roman tombstone collection is genuinely arresting — real people, named, with their jobs — and the attached period house at 20 Castle Street is a series of rooms furnished century by century, which children navigate faster than adults do.
Just outside Chester
Blue Planet Aquarium at Ellesmere Port, about ten miles east, is the standard wet-weather fallback for families in this area — a walk-through tunnel, sharks, and a whole afternoon indoors. Beyond that, adventure covers the outdoor operators: forest high ropes, watersports and the estuary, most of which take children from about seven upwards.
For a bigger day out, day trips has eight options. The two most child-proof are the beach at Llandudno, an hour west with a pier, a tramway and a cable car, and Wrexham at twelve miles, where Erddig has parkland to run in and tells its story from the servants’ hall, which is more interesting to a nine-year-old than a drawing room. In Eryri, the Snowdon Mountain Railway from Llanberis solves the problem of a mountain nobody wants to walk up.
Practicalities
Pushchairs. The walls are not pushchair-friendly in places and the Rows involve steps up from street level. The river, Grosvenor Park and the main streets are all fine.
Free things. The walls, the amphitheatre, the Roman Gardens, Grosvenor Park, the Groves and the Grosvenor Museum. That is most of a day at no cost.
Feeding everyone. Chester Market in Exchange Square is the path of least resistance — about sixty stalls under one roof, so everyone gets what they want, and it is closed Mondays.
Rain. Chester copes better than most cities because the Rows are covered. Chester in the rain has the full list.
Plan the rest of your trip
Attractions has all twenty in detail, what’s on covers the year including the Christmas market and the open-air theatre season, and where to stay explains which areas suit families and when the city books out. If you only have one day and no children in tow, Chester in a day is the faster route.
Hero photograph: Nadia (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons