Name: Explore Chester's free English Heritages sites with Craghoppers and Corinne Jones
Uploaded: 2025-07-17T09:06:40.000Z
Duration: 6 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi, I'm Corinne and I'm here in the beautiful Chester on a short city break.

Future continuous

While I'm here, I'm going to be indulging in Chester's food scene, exploring the scenic shopping rows and taking a walk on the city walls.

Participle clauses

I've heard that no visit to Chester is complete without a visit to one of the iconic free sites, cared for by English Heritage.

Along the way, we're going to meet the passionate English Heritage volunteers who work tirelessly to keep these sites alive so that visitors can enjoy them for free.

Whether you're here for the history or the views or a little city adventure, let's go explore.

First up, I'm meeting volunteer Rachel at Chester's Roman Amphitheatre to learn more about this incredible site and the work that goes into preserving it.

Wow, what an incredible place we're standing in.

Can you tell me a little bit more about it?

Okay, well this is Chester's Roman Amphitheatre.

We think it dates from around the first century when the original wooden structure was built.

It would have been a little bit smaller than it is now.

Later on in the third century, they expanded it so it seated about 7,000 people.

So we think the space would have been used mainly as a place for military training.

There would have also been a source of entertainment as well, such as the gladiatorial battles maybe and also public executions as well.

It's incredible that so much of it remains here today.

Well, I'm part of the new volunteer maintenance crew here at the amphitheatre and one of our key jobs is to actually maintain the masonry in the site.

So we get moss growth on the stones themselves and what will happen is it will damage the stonework.

So alongside the conservation officer, we've actually been taught ways of preserving the stonework so the site can be enjoyed for many years to come.

Next, I'm meeting Becky at Chester Castle to find out more about the site and the community of volunteers that help keep it open.

So Becky, this is the incredible Chester Castle.

Can you tell me about the history of this place?

Yes, there's over a thousand years of history on this site.

It was built in 1070 roughly by William the Conqueror.

It's been courts, it's been a military base.

And I understand you run events throughout the year.

Can you tell me a little bit more about those?

There's a thousand years of history on this site, so we try and do events that take snippets of each time frame.

So for instance, this year we're doing a Georgian fair, we do a medieval event, quite a few different ones.

Hi, lovely to meet you and welcome to the Agricola Tower.

You don't often see things like this in a city, especially for free.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the tower that we're stood in now?

This was the original gateway into the castles.

If you visit, you'll find lots of volunteers here ready to explain to you the history of the site and the way medieval people lived.

But the real gem of this tower is the chapel that's just upstairs, the Chapel of St Mary de Castro.

So if you'd like to come upstairs, I can show you some of that.

It's the Royal Chapel of St Mary de Castro.

And you've just got to get a sense that this would have been awash with colour.

The walls would have been whitewashed and then paintings applied in here.

Most of it's gone, but what you do see, you see the quality of the craftsmanship.

What we're finding as well, the longer we're in here, the moisture in our breath, the window being open, the colours are coming out and other pictures are beginning to appear that have been invisible.

So you almost have to come back regularly to sort of see what's changing.

I guess that's testament to the amount of time the volunteers are putting into places like this, that you're able to see these changes.

And if you weren't here, I probably would have missed these, which would have been such a shame.

Coming up through the tower, I have met so many volunteers.

It really seems like there's a big sense of community.

What is it about volunteering that inspires you?

Yes, it's a wide ranging community here at Chester.

We're very lucky that we've got bookshop volunteers, visitor explainers and like myself, costumed interpreters here in the mid 18th century.

And that's what I really do enjoy about it.

It's a way of engaging the visiting public in just a different way.

It's not like reading it in a school book.

Here at Chester, it's a wide ranging history, as you found out, thousands of years.

So to be able to tell that story through costumed, through getting up close to the public, it's what it's all about.

We all work together to get it done.  What a day.

Next time you're at an English Heritage site, talk to the volunteers.

Ask them their favourite story and I guarantee it will enhance your experience.

Right, I'm off to explore more of Chester.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Explore Chester's free English Heritages sites with Craghoppers and Corinne Jones

incredible

engage

guarantee

iconic