We noticed several alms houses in the village, and near the smithy had a
talk with an old man who was interested to know that we came from
Cheshire, as he knew his lordship had some property there. He told us
that when a former Lord Leigh had died, there was a dispute amongst the
Leigh family as to who was the next owner of the estate, and about fifty
men came up from Cheshire and took possession of the abbey; but as the
verdict went against them they had to go back again, and had to pay
dearly for their trespass. He did not know where the Leighs came from
originally, but thought "they might have come from Cheshire," so we told
him that the first time they were heard of in that county was when the
Devil brought a load of them in his cart from Lancashire. He crossed
the River Mersey, which divided the two counties, at a ford near
Warrington, and travelled along the Knutsford road, throwing one of them
out occasionally with his pikel, first on one side of the road and then
on the other, until he had only a few left at the bottom of his cart,
and as he did not think these worth taking any farther, he "keck'd" his
cart up and left them on the road, so there were persons named Lee,
Legh, or Leigh living on each side of that road to the present day.
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