Its funny how thing happen, and the links one can make on the Intenet. I received an Mail from Bill Williams who has seen our site. He has an interest in Local Wirrel history and suggested that I look at this site. The article below is cribbed straight from the site, which promotes Stephen Hardings series of books and TV programs, but its a great taster for the real early history of the area. Are we linked into the Viking's and Ingimund's Saga, ,,,,,, might be.
Stephen Hardings TV program was almost default watching, its a great story about the invasion of the Norse and the lasting effects on the UK.
1100 years ago a group of Viking settlers from Norway arrived somewhere between West Kirby and Meols on the shores of north Wirral, having been driven out of Ireland. This initiated a mass migration of their fellow countrymen into the area and soon they had established a community with a clearly defined border, its own leader, its own language, a trading port, and at its centre a place of assembly or government - the Thing at Thingwall. This community was answerable to nobody else: the English, the Welsh, the Dublin Norse, the Isle of Man, Iceland, and not even Norway. The Wirral Norse settlement therefore satisfied all the criteria of an independent, self-governing Viking State - albeit a mini one!
The book, Ingimund's Saga written by Wirral-exile and scientist Steve Harding, is about these people, why they left Norway, where they settled, their religion, their pastimes - such as horse-racing at Irby and rock-climbing at Wallasey - and the legends that have been attributed to them - including the awesome Thór's Stone at "Thorsteinn's farmstead". Wirral was also probably witness to one of the greatest battles in the history of the British Isles - Brunanburh.
The main copy and more on this subject can be found at the
WIRRAL AND WEST LANCASHIRE 1100th VIKING ANNIVERSARY HOME PAGE