Chester No. 9,

The Gentleman's Magazine (issue of July-Dec, 1856: p. 293) quotes from Hughes' 'The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and Its Environs' ([1855?]): "The lower part of several of the houses in the four principal streets of Chester exhibit indubitable signs that they have been built on the remains of the religious buildings with which, prior to the Reformation. The ancient Crypt discovered by Messrs. Powell and Edwards" is described as being "Anglo-Norman-Gothic". In this crypt, "in a niche on the south side of the window is a font in excellent preservation". The editor of The Magazine [usually named as 'Mr. Urban'] [cf. supra] rejects that the said buildings were religious at all, suggests that the said 'crypt' was just a cellar, and finds the 'Anglo-Roman-Gothic' term as incomprehensible. The editor adds: "The small round stone basin placed in a niche in the wall and called a Font! has much more the appearance of a quern, or the lowewr stones of a hand-mill of the period."