Widnes http://cheshirereview.com/Widnes.htm Widnes is situated in the north west of the country in the county of Cheshire. It is part of the Borough of Halton and lies on the River Mersey by the Runcorn Gap. It is thought that the Widnes area may have been inhabited during Stone Age times and there is some evidence of Roman inhabitation here. During the times of the Viking invaders Widnes was part of the Danelaw and stood at the boundary between the Danelaw and Mercia, the Saxon kingdom of the time. In the times of the Normans Widnes was ruled by the Baron of Widnes, Yorfrid, who was given the area by the Earl of Lancaster, Roger de Poictou.

Fishwick, Henry. (2013). pp. 1-2. Memorials of Old Lancshire (Vol. 2). London: Forgotten Books. (Original work published 1909), pp. 259-261 http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Memorials_of_Old_Lancsh...

OLD WIDNES AND THE NEIGHBOURING MERSEY SIDE BY C. RICHARD LEWIS, M.A.

”OLD WIDNES" appears to be what the logicians call a contradiction in terms. The modern town is almost entirely a product of the nineteenth century, and its huge manufactories of chemicals, soap, copper, iron, and what not, remind us merely of the modern industries. But for all that, the ground on whichWidnes stands has a very ancient history. Old Farnworth, now included within the borough boundaries, has something to say for itself; and just outside the borough, on either side, without going anywhere above five miles from the river Mersey, are antiquities of sorts which bring the mind along from Saxon, Dane, and Norman to the early days of the chemical pioneers " the Deacons, Gossages, Hutchinsons, and others, who laid the foundations of the smoky little chemical metropolis. Widnes is not entirely without its family history.

The town itself is built on what was originally, in pre-glacial days, the bed of a much wider and deeper river Mersey, as was explained by Mr. Mallard Reade, C.E., in " The Buried Valley of the Mersey " (a paper read before the Liverpool Geological Society in 1873), from borings taken on the site of the existing works....

…there is little to tell of pre-Saxon Widnes. An arrow-head of flint was discovered some time ago at Pex Hill, where the abundant supply of pure rock-water in which the town delights is stored; and other stone implements have been unearthed at Ditton, doubtless the work of some postglacial savage; but to all seeming neither Neolithic man nor the much more historical Celt has left us any indications of value. The place-names of the immediate neighbourhood " Widnes, Farnworth, Cuerdley, Appleton, Ditton, Cronton, Hale, Tarbock " are good Saxon at all events, or with the merest tinge of Danish. There is some doubt about the strict meaning of the Danish word " Widnes," as to whether it means " wide-ness " or wide promontory, which the present site of West Bank hardly deserves to be called, or " wood-ness," from the luxuriant forests of the older Mersey side. But as an old term for Widnes, frequently heard some fifty or sixty years ago, was " Woodend," I incline to the latter view. Saxon and Danish Widnes, again, has left us nothing to make history withal but a pair of Danish semi-circular entrenchments on the Cuerdley Marsh, if indeed they are rightly deciphered by the antiquary, and are not some accident of nature.

With the Normans, however, Widnes becomes a barony, expressly created, as it would seem, to keep an eye on the barony of Halton, in Cheshire, opposite, where the castle is not yet entirely demolished. Roger Poictou, the friend of the Conqueror and Lord of the Honour of Lancaster, was the first personage in history to give our Widnes a name and a fame. The Widnes barony was extensive, and went so far from the " passagio " of the Mersey (meaning the narrow part between Runcorn and Widnes used for many hundreds of years as a ferry) as to include Sutton, Eccleston, Knowsley, Huyton, and Roby. The first baron was a certain Yorfrid, and, sadly enough, he was also the last, as he left two daughters only, the elder of whom married the son of the second baron of Halton.

The third baron of Halton, in Cheshire, called himself, proudly, Baron of Halton and Widnes, and secured peaceable control of the lands which the barony of Widnes had been expressly created to prevent his acquiring. The absence of any vestige of a castle at Widnes is explained by this marriage of William, son of Nigel. He had one son, William, who died childless.

Thus it was that a stranger, Eustace Fitz-John, by marriage with the sister of the late baron, became fifth baron of Halton and third head of the combined baronies. He was Constable of Cheshire when he died fighting against the Welsh in 1157. Richard Fitz-Eustace followed his father, and was succeeded in his turn by a son, John, who is of interest in that he fought nobly in the Crusades, and was the first to set the Widnes and Runcorn ferry in orderly system somewhere about 1 1 80. A second charter relating to the ferry is dated 1190. Roger Fitz-John, who adopted the surname Lacy, but was known also by the sobriquet of " Hell," fought alongside Richard I. at Acre.