The history of Chesters begins with the building of Hadrian’s Wall and a bridge across the North Tyne in AD 122. A cavalry fort, known to the Romans as Cilurnum, was added in about AD 124 and occupied until the Romans left Britain three centuries later. From the 18th century onwards, travellers have left descriptions of the ruins, and pioneering excavations between the 1840s and 1890s exposed the structures visible today. Much of the fort, however, and the whole of its attached civilian settlement, remain unexcavated.
