The latest volume from the Record Society shows what life was like for people living on the Wirrall in the fourteenth century. Subject to 'forest law,' which restricted their activities so as to preserve hunting rights for royalty, the area was perodically visited by judges to check that the inhabitants were not digging ditches that might trap the king's deer, enclosing land or taking wood or other commodities that they were not legally entitled to.

This is a fascinating insight into a system that has long since been forgotten but which was a very real presence in the late 1350s, when these records were created.