Thelwall. 8 1 



bridge formed of three great flat square stones, and car- 

 rying us over a watercourse that bears to the right. In 

 a few minutes more we enter a lane, and now are at 

 THELWALL recognised by a group of dilapidated build- 

 ings, which are the ruins of the once important Thelwall 

 Powder-mills ; 



As desolate a spot as sorrow could desire ; 



For nodding to the fall 



Is each crumbling wall, 

 And the roof is scathed with fire. 



The manufacture of gunpowder, which had been carried 

 on at these mills for a century or more, was discontinued 

 only about 1855, when a final explosion reduced the 

 place to its present state of wreck. 



Thelwall village, a little farther down the river, was 

 founded by King Edward the elder, about the year 923, 

 and was once a kind of port, the stream having formerly 

 been much wider here. Tradition says that the Danes 

 sailed up it, and formed a camp at Mickley-hill, a 

 mound situated near the point where the Bollin enters, 

 and now covered with fir-trees. Direct and continuous 

 navigation is no longer possible, owing to a weir close 

 to the powder-mills ; but a canal crosses one of the river- 

 peninsulas that occur so frequently in this part of the 

 course of the Mersey, and keeps the passage virtually 

 open. 



Leaving the ruins, and bearing to the left, close to a 

 neatly clipped hawthorn hedge, and then pursuing our 



F 



