Hundreds of Cheshire

The hundreds in between the Mersey and the Ribble (Inter Ripam et Mersam) were: West Derby ("Derbei"), Newton ("Neweton"), Warrington ("Walingtune"), Salford, Blackburn ("Blacheburn") and Leyland ("Lailand").[22] This uncertain nature of the northern border lasted until 1182, when the land north of the Mersey became administered as part of the new county of Lancashire.Over the years the remaining ten hundreds consolidated to just seven with changed names: Broxton, Bucklow, Eddisbury, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich and Wirral.Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connection in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners.Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.The Domesday Survey (1086) included south Lancashire with Cheshire for convenience, but the Mersey, the name of which means 'boundary river', is known to have divided the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and there is no doubt that this was the real boundary.