aerial photograph of Chester Cathedral England UK. Grade I listed Chester Cathedral dates from the 11th century when it was built as church to the Benedictine Abbey on the site. When Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey, he ordered the church be retained and in 1541 it became a cathedral. The church had many alterations between the 11th and 16th centuries. There was probably a church on the site during the Roman period and certainly a Saxon church was known to exist before the present building, although little trace of anything before the 11th century now remains.