BIRKENHEAD, a chapelry in the parish of BIDSTONE, lower division of the hundred of WIRRALL, county palatine of CHESTER, 9 miles (N.N.E.) from Great Neston, containing 200 inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Chester, endowed with £1000 private benefaction £800 royal bounty, and £1200 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of F. R. Price, Esq. A priory for sixteen Benedictine monks was founded here, about 1150, in honour of St. Mary and St. James, by Hamon de Massey, third baron of Dunham-Massey, which, according to Leland, was subordinate to the abbey of St. Werburgh, at Chester; but from the power exercised by the monks, Bishop Tanner considers it to have been an independent priory: the revenue, at the dissolution, was £102. 16. 10. The ruins, part of which has been fitted up for a chapel, stand on a peninsular rock of red freestone, formed by the sestuary of the Mersey, on the east, and a small creek on the west, opposite to Liverpool.