Holt liars, Farndon bears,
Churton greyhounds, Aldford hares.
In Stoak there are but few good folk,
In Stanney--hardly any.
Gobbinshire, Gobbinshire from Gobbinshire Green,
The ronkest oud beggar as ever was seen.
_Gobbinshire was a name of the lower portion of the Wirral peninsula._
Sir Randle Crewe, the Lord of this manor,
Was born in Nantwich, the son of a Tanner.
Middlewych is a pretty toun
Seated in a valley,
With a Church and Market Cross
And eke a bouling alley;
All the men are loyal there,
Pretty girls are plenty,
Church and King, and doun with the Rump
There’s not such a toun in twenty.
--_Cavalier Ballad._
“Congleton rare, where they sold the Bible to buy a bear.”
_The inhabitants once laid by money for a new Bible, but the town
bear having died, they devoted their savings to buying a new bear for
baiting._
When the Chester and Birkenhead railway was made, the name of Ledsham
was given to a station which was nearest to Sutton, and this gave rise
to the following:--
“I want to go to Sutton please.”
“There aren’t no Sutton _now_.”
“It’s taken t’name o’ Ledsham, sir.”
“For an estate? or how?”