;IE HUNDRED - Old Wirral.com

WEBB'S DESCRIPTION OF WIRRAL
the year 1621, and printed in King's Vale-Royall,
aptly
describes it thus :
" I have laboured," he says, " to cast the
Hundred of Werral by the dimensions thereof
into some resemblance, and though, geometrically
of a
considered, it comes nearest to the figure
long square, or rather a rhomboides, yet because
the long sides are not straight lines, nor the opposite
ends equal in their distance, we must take
it as it is irregular, and the nearest resemblance
that I can give it, is the sole of a lady's left-foot
pantofle, for the farthest north-west end, com-
passed with the sea, falls somewhat round ; then
it narrows itself both ways, and between Bebbing-
ton on the east, and Oldfield on the west side,
falls narrow of the sole ; then it widens itself
either way to Stanney on one side and Burton on
the other, where it is broadest; then narrowing
again till it points with the tip of the toe upon
Chester liberties. Mr. Cambden fitly calls it
a languet of the land, and promontory of the
mainland, shooting into the sea, inclosed on
the one side with Dee-mouth, on the other side
with the Merzey. The Welsh Britons call it
Killgurry, because it is an angle. That it was
in old time a forest, I think cannot be doubted,
but that it should not be inhabited, or disafforested,
not till King Edward III.'s time, that I suppose
to be true but in part ; for the very antiquity
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