yeilding to my daughters five hundred pounds over and above ye mortgage of one thousand pounds. Appoints as executors my father-in-law John Scorer of London, my wife Jane Glegge, John Glegge, my onely brother. Witnesses: John Glegge, Ann Jackson Thomas Yong.

Armorial seal, indistinguishable.

The will of Jane Glegg of the City of Chester, widow, weake, dated 10 Nov., 7 George, 1720, was proved C.C. Chester 8 July 1721, by the executrix. Jane Glegg was buried at Thurstaston as relict of Edward Glegge of Irby, gentleman, 7 March, 1720; and is commemorated on her husband's tablet.

Testatrix leaves all personal estate "to my Dare and will beloved Dater Ann Glegg," paying my son Roger twinty pound, and makes my only Dater Ann Glegg executrix. Witnesses: Tho. Bennett, Mary Bennett, John Crane. The will appears to be a holograph.

THURSTASTON COMMON.

"Thurstaston Common," more properly perhaps, Irby heath,1 appears, even in the last century, to have been somewhat more extensive than it is at present. It lies between Irby and Thurstaston on the south and Caldy and Frankby on the north, and formerly at least was in due season a glorious blaze of golden gorse and purple heather. Its beauty was naturally an offence to King Demos, however, and since the major portion was devoted to the use of the public he has swiftly seen to it that a succession of fires should leave a great part of it a blackened expanse of earth and rocks. The western portion forms a scarp overlooking the strip of flat land between it and the estuary of the Dee, here some five miles wide, and from the highest point in the south-west corner of the heath the view of the Welsh hills and mountains is magnificent,

1 It is so styled in C. Smith's New Map of the County Palatine of Chester, 1804. Swire & Hutchin's Map of the County Palatine of Chester, 1828 and 1829, published by Henry Teesdale & Co.; A new Map of the Hundred of Wirral, published by J. Hunter, Chester, 1820; Pigot & Co.'s map, N D.

C

extending from the range south of Mold to the Great Orme's Head. Probably few who see the latter in the dim haze wot that it has aught to do with Thurstaston, yet it was close to it, under the walls of his castle at Deganwy, that Robert de Rodelent, the Norman grantee of Thurstaston after the Conquest, met his end at the hands of the Welsh in 1088.

The first portion of the heath acquired for the enjoyment of the public was under an Award of the 15 December, 1883, confirmed by the Land Commissioners on the 22nd following, and consisted of forty-five acres at the south end, "allotted and awarded unto the Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor of the parish of Thurstaston . . . in trust as a place for exercise and recreation for the inhabitants of Thurstaston, Birkenhead and neighbourhood . . . the . . control is vested in the said Churchwardens and Overseers jointly and equally with the Corporation of Birkenhead and the expenses . . . shall be defrayed in equal proportions"... "Thor's stone" is to be preserved in its present state, and no stone to be worked by any one.1 Three other lots on the north side, amounting in all to 98 acres, have since been presented by generous donors to the National Trust, the first of the three being in the custody of the Corporation of Birkenhead.2

Ormerod in his original edition stated:

Irby lies partly in the parish of Woodchurch, and partly in Thurstanston. From the village of the latter it is separated by a moor, on which are some broken fragments, which have very 1 Information kindly supplied by Mr. James Fearnley, town clerk of Birkenhead.

2 The properties of the Trust include: "65. Thurstaston Heath (1916). Twenty-seven and a half acres of moorland adjoining Thurstaston Common, Cheshire, situate about 7 miles from Liverpool. Presented by Sir A. V. Paton in memory of his brother, Captain M. B. Paton, who fell in action in Gallipoli. The land is under the management of the Birkenhead Corporation, subject to the control of the Trust. In 1917, Sir A. V. Paton, Mr. A. K. Bulley and Mr. W. C. Stapledon presented a further sixty-four acres of adjoining land. In 1918 Sir A. V. Paton presented a further seven acres of land adjoining, known as Irby Hill." Twenty-sixth Report of the National Trust for places of historic interest or natural beauty, 1920-1.

much the appearance of being the remains of an antient rocking stone, but are too much injured to suffer any positive opinion to be formed respecting them."

This probably refers to a group of rocks at the edge of a hollow about 80 yards east of the road to Caldy, at the intersection of lines drawn S.S.E. from the new school house and W.N.W. from the Anchor Inn. One flattopped rock, 48 by 44 inches on its upper surface, possibly broken off from the next mentioned, lies upon the ground; another, 4 feet high and measuring on top 75 by 36 inches, rests slantwise on a rock or on rocks beneath it at three points, and though it has certainly, on casual inspection, somewhat the appearance of a rocking stone, that it ever was so seems dubious.

II. THE HALL.

Before describing the hall it seems desirable to notice Sulley's statements that

An older hall or castle probably existed on the shore-perhaps the one built by Robert de Rodelent, more northerly close to the sea. Within the last half century considerable ruins remained, but the stones have all been removed, and used for building purposes. It is again1 to be regretted that Ormerod's survey was not more thorough."2

Sulley places the words italicised above within inverted commas as a quotation, but gives no authority for them. Now there is nothing inherently improbable in the supposition that Robert de Rodelent may have built some kind of a landing place on Dawpool deep and possibly a small fort to protect it. We know that he held the castle

1 The word "again" refers to the author's criticism of Ormerod for failing to notice" Thor's stone."

MAP SHOWING THE COAST-LINE WEST FROM THURSTASTON, WITH DEGANWY IN THE DISTANCE.

of Rhuddlan1 at or near the mouth of the Clwyd as well as the castle of Deganwy or Ganok, situated a short distance from Llandudno bay at the south-west end of a low range of hills running from the Little Orme's Head to the Conway river and opposite to the future Edwardian castle of that name. He would doubtless, from time to time, require to communicate with his estate in Wirral, or to transport men and munitions thence. Shotwick ford was treacherous and, as a glance at the map will show, the journey by way of Chester circuitous in comparison with the sea route. At the same time it is probable he drew the bulk of his supplies from Chester or the surrounding district, as did his successors in the fourteenth century.2

One refers therefore naturally to Orderic to see if Sulley's quotation can be found therein. Sure enough a passage is found,3 in which it is said that Robert, after Rhuddlan castle had been constructed and placed in his charge, “built a castle at Deganwy close to the sea." The words "more northerly" do not appear.1 There is no Castle Hey, Castle Field or similar name in the field names of Thurstaston or West Kirby, nor any mound to make a castle site. The coast may have eroded, a process still going on, so that a "hall or castle"

may have been

1 Rhuddlan is often mentioned temp. Edward II as an important port. River silting has been the cause of its decay. The L. & N. W. Ry. bridge finally sealed its fate. See The Evolution of a Coast Line, by William Ashton (1920), p. 177.

2 Accounts of the Chamberlains . . of Chester, 1301-1360; Ed. by R. StewartBrown (Record Soc. Lancs. & Ches. LIX), 7, 8, 10, 11, 25, 95, 215, 273, 276.

3" 1088. Deinde post multos agones prædicto Hugoni comitatus Cestrensis datus est, et Robertus princeps militiæ ejus et totius provinciæ gubernator factus est. Tunc vicini Britones, qui Gualli vel Guallenses vulgo vocitantur, contra regem Guillelmum et omnes ejus fautores nimis debachabantur. Decreto itaque regis, oppidum contra Guallos apud Rodelentum constructum est, et Roberto, ut ipse pro defensione Anglici regni barbaris opponeretur, datum est. Bellicosus marchio contra inquietam gentem sæpissime conflixit, crebrisque certaminibus multum sanguinis effudit. Incolis itaque Britonibus sævo marte repulsis fines suos dilatavit, et in monte Dagannoth [Deganwy] qui mari contiguus est castellum condidit." Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Ecclesiastica," lib. viii, in Du Chesne, Hist. Normannorum Scriptores (1619), p. 670.

4 Giraldus Cambrensis merely says earl Hugh rebuilt Deganwy.