Talk:List of sections of Chester city walls and associated structures

A fact from List of sections of Chester city walls and associated structures appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 June 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Chester city walls (section pictured) form the most complete circuit of Roman and medieval defensive town walls in Britain?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/June.

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In Henry James[edit]

I'm not sure if this is worth mentioning, but near the beginning of The Ambassadors, the protagonist wanders around Chester, and James mentions the walls: "The tortuous wall—girdle, long since snapped, of the little swollen city, half held in place by careful civic hands—wanders in narrow file between parapets smoothed by peaceful generations, pausing here and there for a dismantled gate or a bridged gap, with rises and drops, steps up and steps down, queer twists, queer contacts, peeps into homely streets and under the brows of gables, views of cathedral tower and waterside fields, of huddled English town and ordered English country." Commentary on this is here, here, here and here. - Biruitorul ^Talk 18:41, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And it's still just like that today!! --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merger?[edit]

It seems to this benighted editor that this article really belongs in the Chester city walls article, which is pretty small to begin with. It's slicing the cake awfully thin to have separate articles about the walls and their parts. Should the two articles be merged?--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 18:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A good thought, which I also had when I compiled the list. The article Chester city walls is IMO not very good, even though it's been given a class B assessment (I would have placed it at no more than Start). IMO there is room for a "proper", long, detailed, and scholarly article on the walls which, if it were done properly, would be too long to be merged with this list. Maybe one day, I'll do it; or perhaps someone more expert than I might do it. I would rather not combine them at this stage, so that it leaves this option open.

Looking toward the future, especially following the fairly recent split of the county into the unitary authorities of Cheshire West and Chester, and Cheshire East, something will have to be done about Grade I listed buildings in Chester and Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire. I would imagine the best thing would be to create separate lists of the Grade I buildings in each of the new authorities. But the city walls do not fit comfortably. However a connection/link could be made between this list and the Cheshire West and Chester list to sort of sort it out. Early days... --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I too see this as an unfortunate fork, both articles cover about the same stuff, except the first is very poorly referenced and has the additional list, Sadads (talk) 10:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This list contains more than the walls; it incorporates the gates (bridges), towers, etc. There are separate articles on most of these. I still think there is place for a very much better article on the walls themselves, separate from this list. (Perhaps I made the "mistake" of including too much information in the lead.) --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 11:42, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a merge could work, and I agree with Peter that a properly written article on the walls would be too large to merge with this one anyway. The reason I don't think it could work is that the two articles are necessarily organised differently; the city walls article needs to be a historical, chronological account, covering not just significant structures but significant events, whereas this one is a straightforward list of the various sections regardless of their historical importance or context. Malleus Fatuorum 11:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As there has been no further discussion for over 3 months, and as the Chester city walls article has been expanded, making it inappropriate as a lead for a list, I have deleted the merge tag. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 09:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lead tag[edit]

I have deleted the lead tag because it is inappropriate for this type of article to have what is normally seen as a lead. In effect, being a list (rather than a "normal" article), the whole of the introductory text acts as the lead. It follows the format accepted for Featured Lists. Examples of such lists that have achieved FL status are List of new churches by John Douglas, List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in Northern England, and Listed buildings in Runcorn (urban area). --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:45, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cheshire portal[edit]

I've proposed this list for inclusion in the Cheshire portal. If there's any reason it shouldn't be featured there, please join the discussion. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]