Chester Memories: Keeping an eye on walls work

By Chester Chronicle on Dec 18, 09 11:08 AM in Chester City

A WEBCAM has been set up on Chester's historic city walls, allowing Cheshire West and Chester Council to stream live images of repair works on to its website.

Cheshire West and Chester Council, Portfolio Holder for Recreation and Culture Cllr Richard Short said: "The national importance of Chester's city walls is recognised by their status as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and they are unique in being the only city walls where the complete circuit still survives.

"The unusual repair project is the result of the collapse of a section of the sandstone structure and is expected to take around 12 months to complete."

The live IP camera shows stonemasons removing the unstable material while the council's archaeologists record the structure stone by stone.

Off-camera the stones are labelled, craned down and carefully stored ready for replacement. Other trial trenching and recording works are also taking place.

Chief Executive for Chester Renaissance, Rita Waters, said: "The walls were first built by the Romans and added to by the Saxons and the Normans. They have been constantly altered, repaired and sometimes even attacked and survive today because, from the 18th century, they were used as a fashionable walk and public space.

"These repairs give us a unique opportunity to find out how the walls were built, and installing the IP camera has allowed us to share this with residents."

The high-performance Mobotix 3 megapixel camera installed by Network Webcams uses an internet connection supplied by nearby five-star hotel the Chester Grosvenor and Spa.

Mounted high above the walkway on scaffolding surrounding the works, it shows the walkway paving and a deep "hole" behind which the unstable section of wall has been taken down.

The exposed cross-section of the remaining full-height wall at the back of the picture consists of a sandstone rubble and mortar "core" with facing stones.

Network Webcams' Managing Director Frank Crouwel said: "This is a really interesting application of IP CCTV technology as it allows the local council to create a permanent record of a challenging project which the public can watch in real time.

"In our experience, the addition of live streaming to a website often makes that page the most popular, demonstrating the appeal to stakeholders of 'looking in' on what's going on."

For more information about Network Webcams, log on to www.networkwebcams.info.