8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY [CHAP. n. 



importance were transferred to Strigul, now known as 

 Chepstow, after the Norman Conquest. Sedbury Park is 

 believed to have been an outlying post of this chief military 

 centre, and it was occupied by soldiers " guarding the 

 beacon and the look-out over the passages " of the Severn. 

 Considerable finds of Roman pottery (plate xi.) were dis- 

 covered about 1860, while drains about 4 feet deep were 

 being cut near to the Severn cliffs. They consisted chiefly 

 of fragments of rough earthenware cooking dishes and 

 cinerary urns, &c. There was also a small quantity of 

 glazed, red Samian cups and one piece of Durobrivian ware 

 and great quantities of animals' teeth and bones, but no 

 coins (p. 174). After the death of my father it was found 

 that much of the best ware had been stolen. 



My father (pi. n.) is well known for the high place he takes 

 amongst our English County historians, as the author of 

 "The History of the County Palatine, and City of Chester," 

 published in 1818. He came of the old Lancashire family of 

 Ormerod of Ormerod, a demesne in the township of 

 Cliviger, a wild and mountainous district, situated along the 

 boundaries of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The varied 

 watershed (transmitting the streams to the eastern and 

 western seas) ; the beauties of the rocks and waterfalls ; the 

 shaded glens, and the antique farmhouses (where fairy 

 superstition still lingered till the beginning of the past 

 century), have been written about by Whitaker in his 

 "History of Whalley." 1 There, in the year 1810, in an 

 elevated position, amongst aged pine and elm trees, and 

 surrounded by high garden walls of dark stone, the mansion, 

 (pi. xxvin.) since greatly enlarged by the family of the pre- 

 sent proprietor stood in a dingle at the side of a mountain 

 stream, which rushed behind it at a considerable depth. 

 Beyond the stream, the rise of the ground to the more 

 elevated moors includes a view of the summit of Pendle 

 Hill, of exceedingly evil repute for meetings of witches and 

 warlocks, and congenerous unpleasantnesses, in the olden 

 time. 



The family of Ormerod was settled in the locality from 

 which they took their name, as far back as the year 1311, 

 the estates continuing in their possession until, in 1793 (by 

 the marriage of Charlotte Ann Ormerod, sole daughter and 

 heiress of Laurence Ormerod, the last of the generation of 

 the parent stem in direct male descent), they passed to 

 Colonel John Hargreaves ; and by the marriage of his eldest 

 1 See pp. 345, 355, 3rd edition, 



