Today's walk was based on Thelwall, a village lying beside the Manchester Ship Canal just outside Warrington. The village also has a 17th century pub, the Pickering Arms, which bears the legend on its gable end: "In the year 923 King Edward the Elder founded a city here and he called it Thelwall".
It was a mistranslation of the word burh, which means military fort, which led to Thelwall being described as a “city”.
Ian