About The Square
The Square is a highly desirable residential development in the heart of Chester, built alongside the Shropshire Union Canal with a range of superb local amenities and within walking distance of the Chester Walls and the River Dee. We are situated 3 miles from Chester Zoo, 1 mile from Chester Cathedral, and 1.5 miles from Chester Racecourse.
Completed in 2004, The Square consists of 125 apartments and 4 commercial units within 6 separate blocks. There are secure gated parking areas, separate entrances to each of the blocks and a coffee shop within the site.
Board of Directors
The Square is managed by The Square (Chester) RTM Company Limited. This is a not-for-profit company whose shareholders are the apartment owners, that is charged with the task of ensuring the safe and effective running of The Square, as well as being financially responsible for the management of leaseholders funds.
There are currently three Directors of the Company that have been elected to provide oversite of the running of the Management Company on behalf of the apartment owners.
To assist with these tasks and to deal with the day-to-day running of the development, the Management Company appointed Matthew’s of Chester as its Managing Agent. Since May 2023 Matthew’s became a wholly owned subsidiary of FirstPort.
The Directors offer their services on a voluntary basis and draw neither salary nor expenses. Any apartment leaseholder can offer themselves as a Director by simply submitting their name for consideration and being nominated and seconded by third parties.
Commitments for Director’s time vary greatly, dependent upon circumstances at The Square, but, as a minimum, they are expected to attend four meetings per annum. These meetings typically take place every quarter and last anywhere between 2 and 3 hours each. In addition, Directors are expected to prepare and attend the Annual General Meeting, held in the evening and lasting up to 3 hours.
A Short History of The Square
The Square, developed by David Wilson Homes, was first occupied in 2004. It was built in an area which had once been part of the industrial heart of Chester, where factories, mills and warehouses occupied the land alongside the Old Chester canal, now an arm of the Shropshire Union. The first stretch of the canal, linking the city to the quarry at Christleton, opened in 1774 and was extended to Nantwich by 1779, to Ellesmere Port in 1797 and to the Llangollen canal in 1806.
The design of the complex makes reference to this industrial past and the names of the six apartment buildings to other Roman towns of Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln and Winchester, as well as the most northerly Roman fort settlement of Corbridge (Northumberland) and the Roman villa at Chedworth (Gloucestershire).
The development is bounded to the south by the Bars, an ancient name given to the part of the road connecting Boughton with Foregate Street. To the west by Seller Street to the Union Bridge and to the east by City Road, which was created in the decade after the arrival of the railway at Chester in 1840. The canal’s towpath, which had been neglected and was near impassable until the City authorities created the shared cycle/footpath in 1999, forms the northern boundary.
The development replaced the Albion Mill (later Witter towbars) and warehouses on the canal side and densely-populated terraced houses constructed in the middle of the nineteenth century along Seller Street, Thomas’s Buildings and Earl’s Villas, whose name survives on the six townhouses within the complex. Similar houses survive on the west side of Seller Street.
For more information see:
The Old Chester Canal, published and edited by Gordon Emery (2005)
Welcome to Chester! (chesterwalls.info) website
or visit the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies at Duke Street, Chester
