River Improvement 137 



year 1343 as 233, equal to 3495 of our present money; the 

 equivalent value to-day of the trading property of Bristol 

 at the same period would be 30,000, and that of Nottingham, 

 then the great inland port of the Trent, ^50,000. 



That was a time when, as the same authority says, " Liver- 

 pool stood nearly at the extremity of the known world." But 

 when the known world was enlarged by the addition thereto 

 of the New World of America, and when commerce with the 

 lands across the Atlantic began to develop, and the industries 

 of Lancashire and Yorkshire to grow apace, the need for 

 improved communications with the port of Liverpool became 

 more and more acute. 



Such need was the greater, too, because of the fate that was 

 overtaking the much earlier and hitherto far more prosperous 

 port of Chester. Established as a fortress of the first order by 

 the Romans, at the western end of one of their famous roads, 

 and favoured alike by Saxons and Normans, Chester had 

 developed into a flourishing commercial port from which, more 

 especially, intercourse with Ireland was conducted, and it was 

 still the port through which travellers passed to or from 

 Ireland for a long time after Liverpool began to compete 

 actively for the Irish goods traffic. Richard Blome, who 

 visited Chester in 1673, describes it in his " Britannia " as 

 " the usual place for taking shipping for Ireland, with which 

 it has a very great intercourse, and a place of very considerable 

 trade." 



But, as against the advantage it offered as an inland port, 

 situate twenty-two miles from its estuary, and dealing with 

 the products of an especially productive county, Chester had 

 the disadvantage due to the enormous masses of sand which 

 were driven into the Dee by Atlantic storms, to the full fury 

 and effects of which the open estuary was exposed. This evil 

 began to grow serious soon after the Conquest, and the port 

 of Chester steadily declined as the port of Liverpool steadily 

 rose, the trade lost by the one helping to build up the pros- 

 perity of the other. 



The benefits resulting from the improvements carried out 

 on the Mersey when, under the Act of 1694, navigation was 

 extended from Runcorn to Warrington, began to be im- 

 mediately felt ; but they also brought out more clearly the 

 great necessity for still further amendment. How merchandise 



