Bromborough

"BROMBORROW, a parish (formerly a market town) partly in the lower, but chiefly in the upper, division of the hundred of WIRRALL, county palatine of CHESTER, 5¼ miles (N. E.) from Great Neston, containing, with the township of Brimstage, 446 inhabitants. The living is a donative belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Chester, endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £1200 royal bounty: the lord of the manor is impropriator of the great tithes. The church, dedicated to St. Barnabas, is a small edifice, with a low wooden tower containing some specimens of early Norman architecture. The learned editor of the Saxon Chronicle has enumerated this among the places which, from the similarity of name, may claim to be the scene of the decisive action fought at Brunanburgh, in 937, between the Saxons under Athelstan, and the Danes under Anlaf and Constantine, in which the latter were defeated, and pursued for two days with great slaughter. A monastery was founded at this place, then called Brimesburgh, by Ethelfleda, the celebrated Countess of Mercia, about 912, which was demolished previously to the Conquest, subsequently to which period the manor was given by Ranulph de Gernons, Earl of Chester, to the monks of the abbey of St. Werburgh, to whom Prince Edward, when Earl of Chester, granted a license to hold a market here weekly on Monday, and a fair annually on the eve, festival, and morrow of St. Barnabas; but these have long been discontinued. The courts belonging to the abbey were occasionally held in the manor-house, which was one of those directed by the charter of Earl Ranulph to be kept in a state of security and convenience for that purpose. The parish is bounded on the east by the river Mersey." [From Samuel Lewis A Topographical Dictionary of England  (1831) ©Mel Lockie]