IN the lead up to Valentine’s Day, the Grosvenor Museum, has installed a small exhibition and museum trail which captures Chester’s romance throughout the centuries.

On display are a great selection of love-related artefacts, including medieval wedding rings, elegant Victorian wedding dresses and many other love-themed relics. The tender trinkets and treasures are on display in the museum until the end of February.

Items on display at the Grosvenor Museum’s Trail include a fragment of a pipeclay statuette of the Love Goddess, Venus; a beautiful covered cup that was a wedding present to Lady Elizabeth Grosvenor in 1876 and engagement rings. The Museum also holds one of the oldest depictions of a married couple in Britain on a tombstone from the 2nd century AD as well as coins that tell the story of two very different marriages.

The Museum is also displaying some of its large collection of Victorian and Edwardian Valentine’s cards, as well as loaning some of these cards to jewellers, Lowe & Sons of Bridge Street who are specialists in antique fine jewellery and silverware. The beautiful cards will be displayed in the store’s historic Grade II-listed Bridge Street premises in their shop window and upstairs in their own museum.

Chester has long claimed to be Britain’s ‘City of Love’ thanks to its romantic history, great architecture and beautiful walks. This romantic exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum supports CH1ChesterBID’s ‘City of Love’ campaign featuring a Valentine’s trail around the city centre: experiencechester.co.uk and a social media campaign that has citizens around the city reading ‘love poetry’. This has included the Leader of the Council, Councillor Louise Gittins reading ‘Love and Friendship’ by Emily Bronte and Kate Harland from the Grosvenor Museum reading ‘Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Chester Town Hall is illuminated in red light this week.

Councillor Louise Gittins, leader of the council and cabinet member for wellbeing, said: “Chester is a wonderfully romantic city and I am pleased that visitors will have a chance to see that the claim to be the ‘City of Love’ is also based on a wonderful collection of romantic artefacts in the Grosvenor Museum.”