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Caer Legion

Caer Legion in 481

Chester is a walled city in Cheshire, England. It was founded by Legio II Adiutrix of the Roman Army in 79 AD as a fort called Deva Victrix, and it was named for the goddess of the River Dee, along which it is located, and for Legio XX Valeria Victrix, which was also stationed there. A civilian settlement grew around the fortress, and its 1st-century AD amphitheatre was able to seat up to 10,000 people. The Army abandoned the fortress following the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD, but the Romano-British civilian settlement continued, with some Roman veterans staying behind with their wives and children, and the fortress and its defenses being used to fight off Irish pirate attacks. Known as Caer Legion, it was a part of Rheged immediately after the Roman withdrawal, having 2,100 residents in 481, 70% of whom were Roman Christians and 30% pagans. Caer Legion later came to be a part of Powys, but, in 616, King Aethelfrith of Northumbria conquered Chester after a major battle with the Britons, and it became an Anglo-Saxon stronghold. The Mercians extended and strengthened the walls of Chester to protect the city against the Danes, who occupied it for a short time before King Alfred the Great of Wessex drove them from the city. His daughter Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, built the new Saxon burh and built a church dedicated to Saint Peter in 907 AD. From the 14th to 18th century, it was one of the most prominent cities of North West England, and it played a significant role in the Industrial Revolution. From the 1950s to 1960s, large areas of farmland on the outskirts of the city were developed as residential areas. In 2011, Chester had a population of 79,645 people, and it was a Conservative Party stronghold from 1859 onwards, with brief Liberal Party interruptions from 1865 to 1868, from 1880 to 1886, and 1906 to 1910 and Labour interruptions from 1997 to 2010 and from 2015.

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