MysteryFamous
The Grinning Cat
He grins like a Cheshire cat.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- A small grinning cat carved on a sandstone tower
- Legend from
- Local tradition
- Best time
- Any
- Tone
- Whimsical
Look up at the tower. A stone cat has been grinning down on Grappenhall for centuries.
The phrase 'grin like a Cheshire cat' first appears in print in Francis Grose's dictionary of 1788. Many have tried to explain it. In 1853 Samuel Maunder blamed inn-sign painters whose lions looked like cats. At St Wilfrid's in Grappenhall, now part of Warrington, a sandstone cat is carved on the tower by the west window. It has been suggested as the original Cheshire Cat, perhaps seen by the young Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), whose father was vicar at nearby Daresbury. The Cheshire Historic Environment Record offers another idea: the cat may be a pun on Caterich, a property owned by the Boydell family, the church's patrons.