Handforth, or Handforth-cum-Bosden, as it is officially called--the manor of Handforth with that of Bosden forming a joint township in the parish of Cheadle--is still only an inconsiderable village, though in its outward aspect it has changed materially since the time when, in 1534-5, Sir William Brereton, then a young man of thirty or thereabouts, recorded his adventures in other lands and made favourable comparisons between his native place and those he visited. Thus, complaining of the scanty provision he had to put up with after a forty miles' ride in Ayrshire, he says: "The entertainment we accepted, in a poorer house than any upon Handforth Green, was Tharck-cake (_i.e._, oatcakes), two eggs, and some dried fish buttered;"[23] in Ireland he fared no better, for at Carrick, he says, "Here, in this town, is the poorest tavern I ever saw; a little, low, thatched Irish house, not to be compared unto Jane Kelsall's, of the Green, at Handforth."[24] Of poor Jane Kelsall and her humble hostelry, in which, possibly, the lord of Handford, before he went a "colonelling," may have occasionally enjoyed his cup of sack, not even a memory has been preserved, and the village green is now only so called by courtesy, for the railway traverses a part, and what remains has been enclosed, though the name lingers in a meadow which is still known as the "Green" field. From the railway station a pleasant rural lane that crosses the line descends into a little valley, at the bottom of which a tiny rindle hurries on to add its tributary waters to the river Dean; crossing this the road ascends and presently brings us in front of the old mansion, a quaint half-timbered structure with black beams and a diaper-like pattern traced in places upon the white ground of intervening plaster, and built after the fashion of so many of the Cheshire houses with projecting gables and overhanging chambers. Approaching more nearly we note that much of the old timber work has been removed and replaced with brick painted in imitation of the original oaken framework to deceive the eye of the casual observer; the old mullioned windows, too, have disappeared, and their place has been supplied with others of later date, though of a considerable age, as evidenced by the small latticed panes. Ormerod says the building was originally quadrangular in plan; though there is nothing to indicate that such was the case there can be no doubt it has been shorn of its former proud and graceful proportions; its palmy state belongs to other days, but there is, nevertheless, much left to show what it has been, with the added interest that the halo of antiquity and romance throws around it. The portion that remains has for many years been used as a farmhouse, and the occupants, as may be supposed, have attached but small import to the interest it derives from old associations--alterations have been made to adapt it to its present purposes, and repairs that have been