BICKLEY, a township in the parish of MALPAS,
higher division of the hundred of BROXTON, county palatine
of CHESTER, 3 miles (E. N. E.) from Malpas,
containing 431 inhabitants. There is a place of wor>
ship for Wesleyan Methodists. On the 18th of July,
1657, about a quarter of an acre of elevated ground,
covered with full-grown trees, sunk suddenly with &
thundering noise to such a depth below the surface ot
the surrounding ground, that even the summits of the
trees were not visible, from their total immersion in
water: the water has long been dried up, and the
chasm, called the Barrel-Fall, from being situated on
the Barrel farm, is now quite dry. In a field adjoining
this farm, two tablets of copper, bearing an inscription
importing that certain privileges were thereby granted
by Trajan to some veteran soldiers serving in this
island, and now deposited in the British Museum, were
discovered in 1812.