It will readily be understood that around these different spots, events of great interest and of lasting consequence have centred, and that they have witnessed many things which, if they could now be rescued from oblivion, would add points of supreme importance to the memorials of Old Cheshire. We can only here give very slight indications of their history, but even these may not be without some result, especially if it leads people to make further inquiries and investigations for themselves. It may be well first to give some information as to those which have entirely disappeared, and then to turn to those which are still in evidence by the remains which exist. Shotwick must, from its situation, already indicated, have been a position of considerable importance. Although portions of it were standing in Leland’s time, nothing but the mounds which mark its site are to be seen. Its walls have all disappeared, though the ruins remained in 1622, and, according to Lysons, “the stones were carried way to repair roads within the memory of man”! It received several royal visitors. Henry II. is said to have lodged here on his way to and from Ireland, and King Edward I. was here in 1278. A plan and sketch of the castle are in the British Museum in the Harleian MSS., from which it appears that it was pentagonal in form, with several circular towers enclosing a lofty square one. Of Dodleston, Aldford, and Pulford nothing but the sites remain, though in the two former the earthworks, which include about an acre in each case, are visible. The same may be said of Shocklach, which was said to have been burnt by the Welsh in 1121. This occupied a moated site near Castleton Bridge (deriving its name from the castle), adjoining a small stream. Hanshall gives rough sketch-plans of all these, and tells us that at Shocklach the keep was 22 feet in height. It is more remarkable that we have no remains left of Malpas, though the site of the keep is seen near the church, for here one of Hugh Lupus’s Barons had his seat, and we might have imagined that some portion of the building would have been preserved. Oldcastle, again, is a name only. This also is in Malpas parish. The castle is said to have been burnt by the Welsh at the same time that Shocklach was destroyed. In 1565 not a vestige of its walls remained. On Oldcastle Heath the Royalist forces were defeated in 1644.