A FASCINATING insight into the history of Warrington during the Medieval period has been released.

Harry Wells, a respected local historian, has published Studies of Medieval Warrington.

As well as mapping the stories of the town from before the Norman Conquest, it also sheds lights on some of the names which still resonate in Warrington today from the Botelers who rules Warrington for generations to Beamont.

Mr Wells, from Orford, explains: “This is a thematic study of the roots of the medieval town, manor and parish of Warrington, which grew up with its centre on the north bank of the River Mersey.

“We also look briefly at the wider area of the pre-Conquest hundred of Warrington and also consider when necessary the area immediately to the south of the river crossings which were themselves the focus of historic Warrington, an area which is now part of the modern borough.

“Although administered since 1974 as a single unit, until the 19th century the area was split politically and geographically by the River Mersey, the ‘boundary river’, a division which certainly goes back to the Anglo-Saxon period and probably earlier.

“In the second part we examine how the early nucleus developed rapidly in the 13th and early 14th centuries, stimulated by a new bridge and a thriving market, until the limits of its medieval growth were reached.

“Our study ends with the Dissolution, when the last vestiges of the Middle Ages were overthrown and the town of Warrington, in the view of Ian Sellers, was poised to become the regional capital of the north west.

“Although the later Middle Ages have been covered in some detail, chiefly by Beamont in his Annals, the period from the beginning of the fifth century to the Norman Conquest, is a difficult period with little hard evidence, which previous writers on Warrington have perhaps wisely tended to ignore, so here we are largely in unexplored territory.”

The book also tells the story of many of the different districts and villages of Warrington.

And it looks at the various crossings of the Mersey.

And there are memories of some of the most iconic buildings of Warrington from Boteler School to Bewsey Old Hall and St Elphin’s Church to Market Gate.

n The book is out now in hardback, priced £19.99.