From the summit of Beeston Castle, or, better still, from the more elevated escarpment of the adjacent Peckforton Hill, marked on the survey map _Stanner Nab_--a name little altered from its original Saxon, _Stan-es Nebb_, literally “front of stone,” or stone head, and now commonly called _Tanner’s Nob_--nearly the whole county is spread out in fine panorama of plain; the view extending from the Wirral coast to the high moorlands of Macclesfield, a distance of about fifty miles; and from the Mersey to the Shropshire border, a little over thirty miles. A like distant and picturesque horizon is obtainable from eminences such as Alderley Edge, Cloud End, and Mow Cop on the east; Frodsham Hill, Helsby Tor, and Halton Castle on the north; Carden Cliff, Harthill, and Belvidere in Wirswall on the south border. From gentle uplands, the more circumscribed landscape presents the effect of a tree-covered plain, owing to the great quantity of hedgerow timber, chiefly oak, and the smallness of the fields. This illusion is perfect when the view is taken from the cupola on the roof of Doddington Hall; but in reality the county is almost destitute of woods, excepting spinnies, often hidden in dingles, and the rather modern plantations on the central hills. There are, however, extensive parks at Dunham, Tatton, Tabley, Arley, Lyme, Peover, Somerford, Oulton, Vale Royal, Eaton, Cholmondeley, Combermere, Doddington, and Crewe; although some mentioned in history have been disparked, as at Kermincham and Norbury Booths. Cheshire is a county of large estates, many of which have descended by a long ancestry to the present owners. The greatest estates occur in the purely agricultural and sparsely populated districts of the south. In order of their extent comes first the Peckforton estate, 25,380 acres (Lord Tollemache); next Cholmondeley, 16,842 acres (the Marquis of Cholmondeley); then Eaton, 15,001 acres (the Duke of Westminster); Doddington, 13,832 acres (Sir Delves L. Broughton, Bart.); and Crewe, 10,148 acres (Earl Crewe); but this last estate does not include the railway town of that name. Other large landowners[47] (most of whose names are historic in the county, and whose estates vary between 5000 and 10,000 acres) are-- The Lords--Egerton of Tatton, Harrington, Stamford, Derby, Haddington, De Tabley, Delamere, Stanley of Alderley (Sheffield), Kilmorrey, Shrewsbury, and Combermere. Also Sir Philip Grey-Egerton, Mr. Legh [now Lord Newton] of Lyme, Mr. Legh of Adlington, Mr. Egerton-Warburton of Arley, Sir W. G. Shakerley, Mr. Bromley Davenport, and Colonel France Hayhurst. [47] This list of names is taken from the published returns to the House of Commons of the “Owners of Land” throughout the United Kingdom, commonly called the _Modern Domesday Book_, of 1873.