inches to 2 feet long, 12 inches to 2 feet wide, and 6 inches to 12 inches thick. They form a continuous trackway, slightly raised on a bank of earth, and with a ditch on the right, which gradually increases in depth till it may be 6 feet deep from the level of the trackway. The road still falls below the surface level as it proceeds, till it is about 4 feet below it. This section of the road runs 14 yards south-west, 30 yards further nearly west.

In the next 87 yards the westerly course is continued, the road being hollow; thence the line runs a little south of west for 35 yards; the roadway almost 4 feet below ordinary level; the ditch on the north or right side about 5 feet deeper still. For 5 yards the stones are displaced and broken, and the road dips into a natural hollow for 35 yards, where the stones cease. In crossing the hollow, the "berm" or bank crosses to the north side and the ditch to the south or left side; the road curves in this hollow west-north-west; the stone causeway is destroyed, and the rest of the road (150 yards) runs nearly west, with a tendency to north. The road is throughout about 15 feet wide. The last portion has a ditch and hedge on each side, and keeps the natural level, and is apparently modernised; it has no regular pavement or surface, and it terminates in a road that runs north and south crossing it; there is a marl-pit at each angle. Beyond this there is no trace of it. The road points directly to the south point of Storeton Quarry. The lower or east end falls into the same line as Church Road; a slight turn to the south in Church Road (going eastward) leads to a footpath that takes up the general line of the old road and falls into a curious bit of road continuing the same course towards Bromborough Pool.

The rib of stone in the ancient portion is worn very hollow by long use, and is plainly a pack-horse

track, probably from Storeton to Bromborough Pool. As the existing roads are of some antiquity, and seem to cross and deviate from the old road, it is probably of still greater antiquity, as those roads ignore and partly destroy its line. The stone rib seems to have been set on the ridge of a bank throughout, to throw off the water where the road is hollow. The construction is much too rude for Roman work, and the stone too perishable to have endured so long in use; but the fashion of the mid-rib, as in Blackstone Edge and Delamere Forest, is doubtless a survival and renewal of a Roman model.

A series of ancient roads, one of them similar to this, seems to have radiated from Storeton Hall, which was the mansion of the Sylvesters, foresters of Wirral before the Stanleys, and these roads are most likely mediæval. I have not been able to trace the deep beds of gravel, as used by the Romans, in the construction of any of these roads. The stone rib for pack-horses may be traced in a large number of them, though mostly covered by modern work, and it is usually on the left side of the road, not in the centre.

MEDIEVAL REMAINS AT BRIMSTAGE.

Some years ago a house was erected close to the eastern entrance gate of Brimstage Hall, about one hundred yards from the hall itself, and just outside the trace of its ancient moat. During the excavation of the foundations the traces of an old wall were come upon, which was partly built of well-wrought ashlar stones; but its plan and direction were not carefully noted. During the same excavation a number of human bones. were disinterred, which, from their position, seemed to have been regularly buried, and to have been laid as in a cemetery. Some time afterwards

further fragments of wrought stone were dug up in the garden, a little towards the north of the previous discoveries; these were carefully kept, but until the 27th of June in the present year (1896) no special examination had been made of them, when, at the request of Mr. Anderson, who resides at the house, I made a careful inspection

of them.

The chief remains consist of the head of one light of a traceried window, and the springing of the curve of a second light. The arch of this light is of ogee form, running into flowing tracery above it; the reveals are chamfered with a sub-order of trefoiled cusping; the tracery appears to have been what is called reticulated. Two pieces of mullions, which seem to have belonged to this window, were also dug up, and a small ashlar stone with a stop chamfer, in addition to several plain ashlar stones. On one of the fragments of mullions is a mason's mark, strongly cut, in the form of a broad arrow. Among the other fragments, Mr. Anderson informed me, there was a stoup for holy water, but at the time of my visit this could not be found. The piece of window tracery is plainly of the late second pointed period, and may date about 1350, while the oldest existing part of the hall is more than a century later. Unless, therefore, these fragments were part of an earlier hall, it seems unlikely that they belonged to the hall.

The discovery of graves, the character of the tracery, and the finding of a stoup (if it be one), suggest a separate ecclesiastical building, standing with its graveyard to the east of the hall. So far as I am aware, no record of the existence of any such chapel is known. A search for the history of the lost chapels of Cheshire, about which little is known, would, no doubt, repay the trouble. The

hospitals of Spital and Denny, and the chapels of Moreton, and the traditions respecting the two lost chapels of Wallasey, have never been fully investigated; and possibly we may have to add to these the traces of chapels at Thurstaston and Brimstage Halls, and the mysterious graveyard at Sutton Grange. The groined apartment in Brimstage Hall is said to be the chapel, and it bears traces of such a purpose; the indications, therefore, of an independent building, if this be a chapel, suggests that its use was parochial.

EDWARD W. Cox.

NOTES BY THE HON. LOCAL SECRETARY FOR SEPHTON DISTRICT.

THE OLD CHAPEL AT MAGHULL, COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE UNSWORTH CHAPEL."

THIS Chapel, dedicated to St. Andrew, a very curious specimen of Gothic work, is in the par'sh of Halsall, and at present consists of chancel and north aisle, separated by two arches resting on a round central pillar and two round responds. In the chancel are sedilia, which have had wooden fittings, now gone, and a mutilated piscina.

The chancel arch is destroyed and blocked up, but on the north side the jamb and mutilated capital and springing are traceable. There is a roundheaded arch, formerly entering the north chancel aisle from the nave; it is chamfered and unmoulded and is carried on semi-octagon shafts with capitals,

whose mouldings show them to be late 13th or early 14th century. This arch has been made into a door.

A careful comparison of the mouldings appears to indicate that the building does not date earlier than 1285 to 1290, in spite of the Norman-looking round arch, which, oddly enough, has the most distinct 13th century detail in the moulding. The north aisle capitals omit one member of the usual series of mouldings in a capital of this date, or rather, abacus and bell are somewhat rudely grouped into one feature. While the arcade shafts are round (one early feature) the round arch is carried by semi-octagons (a later character of shaft.) The south windows seem much later in style than the east window of the north aisle, which has uncusped intersecting tracery.

The design and planning of the building are very good; the execution of the whole very coarse. There are no masons' marks on any of the stones: leading one to think that, while the builders of the chapel got a good plan from a master mason, the work was done by not highly-skilled local men.

There is a Georgian baptismal font built in the wall over the modern west door of the chancel, and a prism-shaped holy-water font close to the same door, set on a fragment of a circular pillar.

On the east wall of the chancel is a trace of a mural painting, not unlike the conventional wing of an angel.

The north chapel has in it a hatchment of "Molyneux-Seel," and is now used as a mortuary chapel by the owner of Maghull manor house.

The 18th century nave of Maghull chapel was pulled down after 1880, when the new Church of St. Andrew was built (consecrated by the Bishop of Liverpool on the 8th September in that year.)

I The arms of this family are given in Gregson's Fragments, ed. 1869, pp. 227 and 250.