the Saxons, who entered Cheshire early in the seventh century, also used this quarry. A sculptured Saxon cross at Neston, with the figure of an ecclesiastic and Saxon knotwork, also some pieces of Saxon crosses, probably of the tenth century, from the stones of the destroyed church, and the traces of Saxon foundations at Bebington Church, are all of this stone.

Of Norman work we have the south nave arcade of Bebington Church; and of thirteenth and fourteenth century buildings the nave and tower of Bebington Church, and much of the fine sculptured work at Birkenhead Priory, and some windows of domestic work noted in vol. xii (N.S.) of the Transactions of the Historic Society, are all of Storeton stone. Storeton Hall, of the late fourteenth century, is naturally built from this quarry. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century the stone was freely used in the church and the neighbourhood of Bebington, at the destroyed hall of Tranmere, built by Randle Holme, dated 1614, and as far south as Willaston. From the seventeenth to the eighteenth century nearly all the houses, barns, and fences of this parish and adjacent ones were built of this stone. We may, therefore, conclude with certainty that the Storeton quarries have been in continuous use for over 1700 years. In modern times large supplies of stone have been furnished to Liverpool and elsewhere from the same source; but even the length of time they have been in use, and the fact that roads and fences have been largely made from them, hardly suffice to account for the enormous mass of material that must have been obtained from these great excavations.

Another feature of great interest connected with these quarries is to be seen in the peculiar manner of working this stone. If the tooling of the Roman

and mediæval fragments is examined, it will be found almost identical with that which survived till the first half of this century, and which has unfortunately of late been displaced by modern methods. The herring-bone and cross-hatched tooling of Roman character is to be seen in numerous buildings of the last century and at all earlier intermediate dates; and so marked is this characteristic, that it has been alleged as conclusive evidence of Roman date in the walls of Chester, by noted antiquaries who were not familiar with our local fashions of work.

Before leaving the subject of the quarries it may be well to note that on a thin shaly upper bed of white argillaceous stone are found numerous foottracks of gigantic reptiles, of large and small wading birds, and minor reptiles. These have

been impressed on a moist shore, covered in many places with ripple marks, and with the markings of rain, and have been overlaid by another thin layer of white silt, in very quiet and shallow water, so that the counter impressions are quite perfect. The great footmarks resemble a large human hand with a recurved thumb, and are considered to have been made by an extinct and—before their discovery an unknown bactracian animal, of toad-like form.

It was my good fortune to accompany, about 63 years ago, two then eminent geologists when this curious discovery was first brought to scientific notice, and to see some very perfect examples in situ.

The quality of the best beds of Storeton stone is very good. It is worked very easily when new, but being a very pure and clean quartz, it has the property of hardening by exposure. The inferior beds, which are now used freely, are liable to disintegrate quickly by weather.

THE VILLAGE.

On the south end of the quarry hill formerly stood the manor mill, now destroyed and almost forgotten. Some of the older inhabitants have heard of it as a wooden post mill, built of oak timber, whose precise site there is now nothing to indicate.

Three roads from the quarry hill lead westwards, crossing the woods and the valley, and ascend the western hill to the now small hamlet of Storeton. The houses in the secluded village of Great Storeton hardly number over a score, and in Little Storeton, about a quarter of a mile to the north, there are about the same number. The chief part of these are cottages and farms, and until a few years ago, when many of them were rebuilt, they were for the most part of respectable antiquity. The chief building was formerly the Hall, the ruins of which have been converted into the outbuildings of a large farm. Not only was this building of importance, but it occupied a most commanding site. Although the village hill is lower than the quarry crag, which screens its lands from the east wind, the central position of this rise between the valleys gives it a much wider outlook, west, north, and south. From the windows of the hall solar the view embraces all the net-work of roads that radiate from Storeton.

The long rounded grassy hill on which the hall and village stand is smooth and easily accessible, but the rock is close to the surface, and the hall stands on the outcropping rock, which is also bare in much of the village street. The soil of the hall and some of the cottage orchards and gardens must have been carried up to the ridge, as it stands in many cases high above the general surface and roads, banked up with retaining walls of stone;