Edward The Elder And The Re-Establishment Of Chester

In the Late Saxon period, Chester re-emerged from the dark ages (at least from an archaeological viewpoint), which had enveloped it since the Late Roman period and developed as an important administrative and trading settlement, the major urban centre in the North-West (see Griffiths, this volume). This appears to be largely the consequence of its refoundation in 907 as a burh by Æthelflædan, daughter of King Alfred, brother to King Edward the Elder and wife of Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia. In this paper, the author seeks to review the archaeological evidence for this period and consider some of the problems of interpretation.