An Account of the Ancient Town of Frodsham In
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com Harvard College Library ) ACADEMIAE SIGILLUM RO INV.NO FROM THE GIFT OF WILLIAM ENDICOTT , JR . ( Class of 1887 ) OF BOSTON هت AN ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT TOWN OF FRODSHAM , IN CHESHIRE . All only for to publish plaine Tyme past , tyme present , bothe , That tyme to come may well retaine Of each good tyme the truthe . BY WILLIAM BEAMONT . WARRINGTON : PERCIVAL PEARSE , 8 , SANKEY STREET . I 88 1 . Pr 5184.68 HARVARD COLLEGE JUN 14 1918 LIBRARY biti Price ca pe eman TO THE Reverend Henry Birdwood Blogg , M.A. , VICAR OF FRODSHAM ( The 42nd in succession to that office ) , WHO , WHILE FAITHFULLY DISCHARGING HIS SPIRITUAL DUTIES , SUGGESTED , AND BY THE LIBERAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF HIS PARISHIONERS AND OTHERS , CARRIED OUT THE DESIGN OF RESTORING THE ORIGINAL FEATURES WHICH HIS VENERABLE PARISH CHURCH HAD RECEIVED FROM ITS FOUNDER IN THE NINTH CENTURY , BUT WHICH TIME AND INJUDICIOUS REPAIRS HAD GREATLY OBSCURED , THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY Its Author . Orford Hall , September 19th , 1881 . FRODSHAM : SOME ACCOUNT OF ITS HISTORY . CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST . FRODSHAM , though a very ancient market town , with a weekly 1 market and two fairs yearly , and once an important pass defending the entrance into Cheshire from the west , has lost , or perhaps more properly may be said to have gained , by the change to more peaceful times , some of its former importance . It has now the appearance of a pleasant rural village , and consists principally of one wide open street running nearly straight for the distance of a mile from the bridge over the Weaver on the east to Castle Park , standing on the site of its once Norman castle at the other end on the west . But in its position the place forms a great exception to the generality of Cheshire villages , where , with great fertility of soil , the country is for the most part champaign and flat , and , except in a few places , but little diversified by the undulations of hill and dale . In this respect , however , Frodsham is among the exceptions to this prevailing character , and standing as it does upon a ridge of the new red sandstone formation in an angle where the Weaver pours its waters into the Mersey , and commanding views of both those tidal rivers , and overlooking the broad estuary into which they fall , the place has a highly varied surface , and has some striking scenery to offer , amongst which may be mentioned the picturesque seclusion of Dunner dale , the sylvan beauty of Aston in the Weaver valley , and the bold crag of Helsby , where in my memory the ravens used B 2 Frodsham . to build , and where nature has carved in stone the profile of a human face , and thus immortalised one of the moderns in the way in which an ancient sculptor would have preserved to distant times the portrait of Alexander the Great when he proposed to carve Mount Athos into his likeness . Seen from the east , with its church placed high upon the hill side , yet not on the summit , and backed with the sombre green of the mass of fir woods on Overton Hill , Frodsham cannot fail to arrest the attention and chain the eye ; while the geologist , as he approaches the place , will not fail to notice the curious stratification of its red rock , which inclines towards the east , and , as some of the natives say , bows to pay homage to the rising sun . The importance of Frodsham in old times as a 1 position to guard the neighbourhood is shown by its ancient camp at Woodhouses , part of the ramparts of which still remain ; by its still more advanced camp at Helsby ; by a third camp placed on the hill side at Bradley , which was meant to arrest the passage of an enemy entering by that valley into the interior of Cheshire ; and , last of all , by its strong Norman castle , the work either of Hugh Lupus , the first Norman Earl of Chester , or of some of his early successors , which , planted at the foot of the hill , and on the edge of the marshes , was well adapted , for the purpose for which it was intended , to intercept an enemy approaching from the west . But Frodsham is also remarkable for being in the midst of several places recorded to have been founded near it in the Saxon times . In the map prefixed to Bishop Gibson's edition of the Saxon Chronicle , we see the direction which the Saxon wave of population seems to have taken from the south - east to the north - west corner of England ; for , while the eastern and southern parts of the island are thickly studded with names of cities , towns , and places known in the Saxon annals , and many of which are still known , the remote west , and still more remote north , appear almost like a terra incognita . Accordingly , the county of Chester throughout its whole extent exhibits only the names of four such places , and in the adjoining and far larger county of Lancaster only three such names find their places upon the Frodsham . 3 map , while no ancient road is shown as approaching nearer to the latter county than the city of Chester , which is touched by one portion of the Roman Watling Street . One of the four Cheshire places on the map which is distinguished by a name is Eadesbyrig ( Edisbury ) , which still gives name to one of the hundreds of the county of Chester , being that in which Frodsham is situated . In the Saxon Chronicle , under the year 913 , after an account has been given of certain works of King Edward the Elder , we read as follows : - “ This year , by the favour of heaven , Elfleda , the lady of Mercia , went with all the Mercians to Tamworth , and there built the burgh in the early part of the summer ; after this , and before Lammas , she built that at Stafford ; and in the year ( 914 ) she built that at Eadesbyrig in the beginning of the summer , and that at Warwick towards the end of autumn ; and after Christmas , the year following ( 915 ) , she built the burgh of Cyricbyrig ( Chirbury , in Shropshire ) ; and afterwards at Weardbyrig , and again before Christmas the same year , that of Runcofan ( Runcorn ) . Elfleda , the noble lady who thus founded Edis bury , in the forest of Delamere , and made it a city , and built also the neighbouring town and port of Runcorn , where she built a strong castle , well calculated to resist a foe coming up the Mersey to invade her territory by water , and who , after her husband's death , ruled with consummate skill the great province of Mercia , was the worthy daughter of an illustrious sire , our own immortal Alfred . ” Elfleda , if she did not build , as she was certainly entitled to be called “ a restorer of the paths to dwell in , ” probably renewed the three Frodsham camps which have been mentioned ; but Frodsham itself was not , as was once thought to be , the Cyric byrig ( the Church burgh ) , for , after long search , the antiquaries have placed that place with absolute certainty at Chirbury , in the county of Salop . After the Saxon Chronicle ended there was an interval of much unquiet in the kingdom . Until Edward the Confessor's time there were wars between the English and the Danes ; but history tells us nothing of the local history of this neighbourhood until the coming in of the Normans . There is , B2 4 Frodsham . however , a record in stone , which has lasted possibly from Elfleda's time , of which we shall presently have much to say , which tells us that , if Saxon pens were idle , Saxon hands were not so , but , on the contrary , were busily engaged between that noble lady's time and the actual arrival of the Normans . Edward the Confessor having died in peaceable possession of the throne , rumours were soon after heard of the intended coming of the Normans , and no long time passed before they had actually landed and defeated the English in the great battle of Hastings , in which Harold , the English king , who had opposed them , fell on the field . Harold had been a landowner in Cheshire , and hither , after his death , Algitha , his widowed queen , is said to have repaired to seek shelter with her brother Edwin , the Governor of Mercia . 1 + CHAPTER II . THE CONQUEST . WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR ( who , according to Blackstone and some other law writers , was not a conqueror of the nation in the strict sense of the word , but only a conqueror in the sense of being the first acquirer of the kingdom of his race ) found for a time that what he had won by the sword , by the sword must be maintained . In the year 1086 , however , when he had begun to feel more secure in his seat on the throne , he completed the great national survey called Domesday Book , a work such as no other country can boast of possessing , and which , though it is a badge of our conquest , is one of which we Englishmen may be justly proud . This survey contains the latest record before the curtain fell on the Saxon era of all the landed property in England . In making it , the King's commissioners made diligent inquiry into the names of the several places , who the persons were who had held them in the time of the Confessor , and who held them at the time of the actual survey ; what hides of land there were in each Frodsham .