certainly four churches-Woodchurch, Overchurch, and the two which, in the Norsemen's eyes, gave the distinctive features to the settlements at the extreme corners of the Wirral, and led them to call both places Kirkby or Churchtown, though for distinction's sake they named the one West Kirkby and the other Kirkby in Walley. Bromborough also seems to have been possessed of a church at a very early period, making five churches at least, within a comparatively small area, and doubtless the rest of Wirral was equally well supplied.

But perhaps the most interesting Anglo-Saxon names in North Wirral are those of the contiguous parish and township of Overchurch and Moreton, the one meaning the church on the shore, from Anglo-Saxon ofer, a shore, and cirice, a church; and the other the village on the lake, from AngloSaxon mere, a lake, and ton, a town.

son.

That the land lying between Moreton and Leasowe Castle on the one hand, and Moreton and Great Meols on the other, was at one time a marsh, is a fact that must be patent to any observant perBut it is more than this that I wish to prove. All the evidence seems to point to there having been a shallow lake, or possibly tidal lagoon, covering this area, and that it must have existed quite down into the historic period, possibly almost until the Norman Conquest.

Roughly speaking, the piece of land in question lies north and south, though mostly north, of the Hoylake railway line between Docks and Great Meols stations. The lake covered all Bidston Moss right up to where Wallasey slopes commence to rise, leaving, as almost an island, the site of what is now Leasowe Castle, then probably a low mound capped by a British earthwork; it included all the low lying leasowes as far out as the line of sand hills that girdled

the coast, probably a mile or more to seaward of the present embankment, and spread westward as far as Great Meols, which was probably little more than a patch of sand hills rising out of the mere and backed by the sea. From Great Meols the lake seems to have covered all the flat ground as far as the foot of Grange Hill. The inland shore of the lake appears to have been bounded by the rising ground of Frankby and Greasby, and the slighter rises of Saughall Massey and Moreton villages. A few hundred yards to the east of Moreton the lake seems to have taken a turn inland, and probably ran up the valley of the Fender, between Bidston Hill and Overchurch, as far as the Ford Bridge.

All the land included in the above outline lies very low, none of it being more than 5 feet above, and 3,000 acres of it being several feet below the level of high tides. Such a lake would account for the two otherwise inexplicable names of the "Town on the Lake" and the "Church on the "Shore." I may point out here that the stretching of an arm of the lake up as far as the Ford Bridge would bring the water within a couple of hundred yards of the old site of Overchurch Church, thus making the term "church on the shore" perfectly appropriate.

The strongest proofs of the existence of this lake lie in the names of the fields which at one time formed its bed, but are now rich meadows and fertile fields. In the first place, the whole of that portion of the land which lies west of Leasowe Lighthouse, up as far as Grange Hill, goes by the name of The Carrs, a Middle English word meaning "The marshes," and the various fields are differentiated by such names as the Old Carr, the New Carr (so called in a document dated 1570, therefore not so very new); the Saughall Carr, Newton Carr, Moreton Carr, Little and Great Saughall Carrs, and

so on. We have also numerous hooks around the edge of what was the lake, a hook being a heel of land jutting out into water, Great Ley Hook, The Hooks, Drake Hooks, and many others. We have Land Pool, Moory Flaggs, and lower down, near Wallasey Pool, we have several Salt Thwaites. Then, as showing the commencement of reclamation, we find some of the fields, which here and there swell up a few feet above the level of the surrounding land, bearing the significant name Holme, usually as a compound, e.g. Big Holme, South and North Holme, Holme Hay, Holme Itch, Holme Intake, Oxholme, Lingholme, &c.; Holme being the Norse word for a flat island in a river or near the shore. The fact that these islands bear Norse names, show at how comparatively recent a date their cultivation first began, since the Norse did not finally settle in Wirral until within a couple of centuries of the Conquest. In Newton Carr there is one field still bearing the name The Island. Then in a survey of the parish, dated 1665, in the possession of Mr. Vyner, there is a road shown leading from Moreton to Lingholme, called The Lake Way. 5

But the tranquil rule of the English was at length rudely disturbed, first by the flying visits and finally by the permanent settlement of the fierce Northmen, who, having harried the west of Scotland and north of Ireland, plundered and desolated

5 Since writing the above, I have met with further evidence. Some few hundred yards toward; Bidston, after leaving Moreton village, a lane turns off to the north from the main road, generally called Dangkers Lane. From the levels of the land I had long come to the conclusion that this lane marked the shore line of a portion of the lake, and I was pleased to have my surmise corroborated in the following manner. Walking down this lane last summer I met an ancient_inhabitant, and on enquiring from him the meaning of the name Dangkers Lane, he assured me that it was only a modern name, he had only heard it during the last 50 or 60 years; when he was a boy it was always called Overside Lane. We have here again our Anglo-Saxon over, a shore, and Shoreside Lane, as we should call it, is another interesting bit of evidence.

the Isle of Man, at length attacked the mainland itself, and no spot on the coast offered a more inviting entrance than the Wirral. Canon Isaac Taylor says "In Cheshire, with one remarkable "local exception, we find no Norse colonists. But "the spit of land called the Wirral, between the "Dee and the Mersey, seems to have allured them "by its excellent harbours and the protection "afforded by its almost insular character."

I have been very much impressed, of late, by the completeness of this occupation. At first sight, there only seem to be a few distinctly Norse place-names scattered over the Hundred, but on more careful examination one finds Norse names cropping up everywhere, in the least-expected places,-field names, names of lanes, brooks, etc., all testifying to the complete nature of the colonization.

As I pointed out with reference to the English invasion, the conquerors seem to have had a strong preference for the Dee bank, which of course would be the most important part of the Hundred, owing to the main road from Chester to West Kirby running along it, and so it is not surprising to find a complete chain of Norse place-names running the whole length of the Hundred on its western side. Landing at West Kirby, the Norsemen seem to have seized the important strategic points, and no doubt fortified their villages of Greasby, Frankby, and Irby, which-with Thurstaston on the right, and the meres and marshes of Newton Carr on their left-would form a strong line of defence against any land attack and leave them free to retreat at any moment in their vessels, which would ride securely in the Hoyle-lake, or under the shelter of Hilbree. Then moving southward, they planted Pensby, Heswall, Gayton,-ever with one eye over their right shoulder to see that the river and their

ships were handy-through Neston, Nesse Denwall, Shotwick, and Crabwall, to Chester.

Turning next inland from Thurstaston, through Barnston and Carnesdale, till they met their brethren, whose attack had been made up the Brombrough Pool-which in its sinuous windings would remind them so strongly of their own fjords, and the muddy bottom of which must have seemed to them almost made to rest their long keels on-they together founded that most interesting of Wirral villages, Thingwall.

Wallasey, or rather Kirkby-Walley, was captured, doubtless, by a rush up Wallasey Pool. It needs a powerful imagination to-day, standing on the Halfpenny Bridge, with the thud of Lairds' steam hammers and half a dozen railway whistles sounding in one's ears, to try and picture the morning a thousand years ago, when that fierce fight went struggling up the steep street of Poolton, and the English men-at-arms gave way before the curved axes of the fair-haired heathen.

Of the few remaining townships bearing names of decidedly Norse origin are Birkenhead, accessible by Birket or Tranmere Pool, the two Thorntons, Raby, and Whitby.

But to take the Norse names more in detail

MEOLS (Domesday, Melas), the sand dunes. The next township, Hoose, means practically the same thing, the sand hills, from the Norse haugr, a mound; it may be worth mentioning that in Wallasey the sandhills are still called the "Hoes."

6 Notes and Queries, vol. vii, first series, p. 208. - Meals: On the N.W. coast of Norfolk are certain sandbanks so called. Brancaster Meals, Blakeney Meals, and Wells Meals are among those most dreaded by the mariner. Philip's New World of Words gives-Meales or Males: The shelves or banks of sand on the sea-coast of Norfolk, whence Turgommeals, the name of a sandy shore in Lincolnshire. The word Meales or Malls is, however, obviously connected with the Icelandic Möl, which Helmboc, in his recently published work, Det Norske Sprogs etc, defines as coarse sand," a sandy or stony place.

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