My second walk with Wirral historian and teacher Stephen Roberts, following our winter day out from February this year.
No snow today as I showed him a part of Liverpool many people who live here aren’t aware of. Where the 18th Century merchants moved out to as the port grew and the city filled with people and industry. Many of the grand houses they had built are long gone now. But surprisingly, a few remain.
Along this ‘secret’ path down the side of where ‘Dowsefield’ used to be.
Stephen finds what’s left of Allerton Manor.
How it was.
Once the home of Jacob Fletcher, son of a privateer and slave-trader. It was designed by Thomas Harrison, who also designed the Lyceum in Bold Street, Liverpool.
It’s now one of the places where the City Council store their grit for the winter.
Along Allerton Manor’s carriage way and across the golf course.
To one of Liverpool’s loveliest hidden lanes.
Where we find the back gate into Allerton Towers.
The cold store.
And the house, as it was.
Home to the Earle family, slave traders.
Much of the house is gone now, but the beautiful orangery, on the right of the picture, remains.
The Orangery, Allerton Towers.
Stephen in the Walled Garden, Allerton Towers.
Next it’s across Menlove Avenue and up into Woolton Woods, to another walled garden. This one previously part of the grounds of Woolton Hall, owned back in the slavery days by Liverpool MP Bamber Gascoyne, a vociferous anti-abolitionist.
Rarely open on walks in recent years.
And lovely, in an old style municipal sort of way.
Obviously a popular place at one time. With its own post cards!
Out of the walled garden and emerging from the woods to a view across the river, and across Wirral, to Wales.
A hazy day, but it’s out there somewhere!
The next house was called Camp Hill. Built on the site of one of Liverpool’s earliest settlements, and entirely obliterating all evidence of it.
The house itself is now gone. Just these bits remaining, looking strangely false somehow, a folly of a Roman Ruin?
But its sunken garden remains.
And the house stood on the top of the hill, in the gap between the trees, towards the left.
Next we cross Menlove Avenue again, stopping briefly at the cemeteries.
The lovely Jewish Cemetery.
Before we get to our final grand house of the walk.
Allerton Hall, once the home of the great William Roscoe, abolitionist.
Little changed from Roscoe’s days. Though these days it’s a pub, making much of its money from the local cemetery and crematorium trade.
Its grounds though, are sleepy and abandoned.
Allerton Hall’s abandoned stable block.
And walled garden.
The walk around Lost Liverpool nearly done now.
Pausing for an admiring look at this gorgeous Lodge House as we pass Allerton Towers again.
Next its lunch, at friendly and splendid Onion on Aigburth Road.
And lunch is generous and tasty as always. Very highly recommended.
And after lunch? Well how about another walk?
We’re too near The Florrie not to show it to Stephen.
Photographing home. Wirral from the Dingle.
And he’s got to see the Docker’s Steps hasn’t he?
And we’re hot and thirsty now, so stop for a drink at the ‘Garden Festival’ pub.
Next calling in at what we now have of the Garden Festival.
Festival Gardens.
Where all seems well.
New life is being born.
And the waterfall is, at last, flowing again.
And crossing into St Michaels we find this. The carefully preserved logo of the 1984 International Garden Festival.
A good day’s walking.
Lovely. Thanks for posting. Greatly enjoyed this peek at Liverpool.
Glad you enjoyed it, from all the way over in Texas!
What a fascinating piece of Liverpool history! You obviously do much research for your blogs. I’m thoroughly impressed. The landscaped sundial was my favorite of all these wonderful digital captures.
Stephen’s a published author as well as head of the History department at his school, so it’s best to be informed!
It was good to see these familiar places again and looking wonderful in the height of summer.
Thanks very much to Ronnie for a very interesting walk.
Several thoughts passed through my mind at the time, including the similarity between these Liverpool grand houses and parks and Arrowe Park in Wirral, which was built by the Shaw family who derived some of their wealth from the slave trade just like the above people. In addition, I had always thought of Wirral as being LIverpool’s green lung, but the above walk showed that it has its own green lungs in the form of these wonderful parks, gardens and open spaces.
Ronnie and I also thought about the way people can be so heartless, cruel and selfish by doing such things as investing in the slave trade. We wondered whether we would have been similarly selfish if we were given the chance to benefit from such a thing. We discussed the way in which some people, like William Roscoe, swam against the tide and had the imagination and courage to protest against something which was accepted by the majority. We discussed conscientious objectors in WWI as being a similar phenomenon.
Finally, I was motivated to look these households up in the historic censuses and newspapers and have found a few interesting points which I can share with you. Thanks again Ronnie.
Let me know what you’ve found Stephen. I do think we’re walking on insufficiently discovered ground here.
I will do so Ronnie. Sadly I am a bit behind with everything because my dad died at home in Greasby. As you know, I was very worried about him when we were walking. When I was looking across to the Wirral from the Florrie, I was actually thinking about him and the rest of the family. Late that night, he became ill again and was readmitted to hospital. He was stabilised there and returned home a few days later. He never really got comfortable and died with his wife and children around his bed at 12.30 on Wednesday 21st August. His funeral is on Thursday 29th in West Kirby.
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I have continued to think about the sights and sites we explored on this walk and I remember that we discussed Herculaneum Dock and the origin of the reinforced storage rooms around its edge. I have found some good information in “Liverpool Docks” by Michael Stammers.It is a book of photographs with very informative captions. On pages 95 and 96, he says that the dock was opened in 1866 and that the strongrooms were used for storing oil. This must be why they look like magazines – they were designed to be fireproof. I have found out quite a lot about the people who lived in the above grand houses, but it is a bit too much to put in the blog. I’ll have to send you the information in the post. I have also got a lovely book about William Roscoe and am researching my colleague’s ancestry in order to see if he is related to the great man, as his name is Roscoe. I also have a colleague with the surname Earle, but I don’t think I’ll look that one up.
Well there goes Stan’s Napoleonic War theory!
Looking forward to what you send.
I am afraid so. It’ll take me a while to collate everything, but I will enjoy doing it when I have a moment.
Really enjoyed this. Thanks. I asked around about those pillars at camp hill some time ago and was told that they were moved there from Custom House. http://www.chesterwalls.info/gallery/customs5.html. They sure are impressive.
Thanks Phil, I’ve always thought they looked a bit large for whatever stood there.