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| The first Childwall Hall owned by Isaac and Mary Greene in 1718 |
Childwall started out as an isolated village with masses of green space with the roads from this isolated settlement known for being sandy and unpleasant. The few houses which did stand here were large and widely spaced. The two main residences were Childwall Hall and Childwall House, with only a handful of other buildings in the village, the church of All Saints. Childwall Cottage, the Abbey Hotel, Ivy House and the large green areas of Childwall Park and The Grounds to the south of the Hall. The owners of Childwall Hall owned vast amounts of land in the area as can be seen today, as Childwall Woods with the border of Childwall Abbey Road, Countisbury Drive and Woolton Road. The area then was called The Grounds and was literally the grounds to Childwall Hall.
There has always been some kind of Manor House associated with Childwall going back to the 1600s and it has had a long list of owners. It is recorded that the Earl of Derby owned the manor known as Childwall in 1614 but during the Civil War, his lands were taken by parliament. The Earl managed to regain ownership years later only to sell some of the land on to raise funds to clear his debts. Documents show that Childwall Manor, occupied at the time by Isabel Houghton, was in August 1657 sold or rather mortgaged to Dame Elizabeth Finch and Edward Bagnell. Elizabeth and Edward did not own the manor for long and on the 14th of October 1658, it was again sold for £4,700 to brothers Peter and Isaac Legay, who were described as Merchants of London. The following year Peter relinquished his right to the manor and Isaac Legay became the sole owner until his death in 1680 when the lands and the house went to his son Samuel Legay who himself died ten years later in 1690. This left the land and the house to his 2 sisters, Hannah Hollis and Martha Solly who, having no use for the manor house, hall and land themselves, sold them on in 1718 to Isaac Greene of Prescot, a wealthy attorney practising in Liverpool.
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| 1769 map of Childwall showing Childwall Heath with woodland around Childwall Hall |
Following his death in 1749 his daughter Mary inherited the estate and in 1756 married Bamber Gascoyne, an ancestor of longtime University Challenge host Bamber Gascoigne. At this time 3 out of 4 cups of tea were made from smuggled tea, as all social classes wanted to drink tea. It was a very fashionable drink linked with the lifestyle of the upper classes. Fine delicate china tea cups reflected its status and cost. However tea had extremely high rates of duty, which often doubled the price, which made it a perfect target for smugglers and this took place in all levels of society, even up to the upper classes on grand estates. On the 13th of June 1765 officers acted on a 'tip off' and the help of the gardener at Childwall Hall, William Redpath, was demanded. He led them directly to the tea in the Summer House where 650lbs of smuggled tea was found. However he was also the local constable, and could have himself been linked to the tea smuggling.
Bamber Gascoyne Jnr, the son of Mary and Bamber Snr, married Sarah Bridget Francis Price and took a career in politics becoming a member of Parliament for Liverpool in 1780. When he inherited the estate following the death of his parents he decided the hall was not to his liking. So he decided to demolished it and build a new castellated hall. In 1806 he commissioned John Nash, the architect, to work on the hall, transforming the house in to a yellow sandstone, sham medieval castle, between then and 1813. It looked very much like a medieval castle and was given the nickname of 'The Abbey' by locals. The new Childwall Hall was built from the local Bunter Sandstone and no expense was spared. He was interested in literature and being a friend of a number of famous contemporary authors, he had an extensive library and also collected old master paintings. A huge library was built, along with a billiard room, and an oak Gothic Sarcophagus with Grecian lamps took pride of place amongst the ornate style of furnishing. The woodland around the hall was planted almost a century before but now was turned into 'the grounds'. A wonderful curved carriageway was cut into the sandstone to carry important visitors to the newly built Hall, and within the grounds, an ornamental woodland walk was created through sunken gardens past variegated holly and rare variegated oak trees. Planted heavily with hybrid rhododendrons of various colours and imported trees from around the world, all this was designed to showcase their wealth and impress the many visitors entertained there. He also held local shooting parties amongst the local hills but spent so much time entertaining, that he was asked to step down from his parliamentary seat in 1796 due to his many absences from parliament. The Hall being so grand with a long carriageway, it needed a gatehouse and so a castellated lodge was built by the main gates where visitors would enter. That stands today as a private residence on Childwall Abbey Road but cannot disguise its origins. Bamber's only child, Frances Mary, married Viscount Cranborne, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury in 1821, thus uniting the extensive estates of both families. However, Frances Mary did not live at Childwall Hall after her marriage and the house was let to many tenants, one of them the shipping owner Sir Thomas Brocklebank of the Cunard-Brocklebank shipping line and later his son Ralph Brocklebank. The Hall became empty in 1938 when its final tenants, Childwall Golf Club, moved out.
Liverpool Corporation bought 50 acres of its parkland from the owner for £10,000 in 1939 and was given the hall and 4.5 acres as a gift in 1947 by the 5th Marquess of Salisbury to establish a county college. However the house was found to be riddled with dry rot, requiring expenditure of £25,000 on remedial work alone. In view of this and the general unsuitability of the building for use as a college, the house was sadly demolished. The new community college built on the site opened in 1955, but has itself now closed and the premises are now occupied by Lime Pictures. There were at one time, two entrances to Childwall Hall. Half way up Childwall Abbey Road, there is an entrance where the current Lime Pictures access road runs. This road ran all the way to the side of the Hall. The other, and far more extravagant main entrance to the Hall was from the top of Childwall Abbey Road. The road went through the gates at Childwall Wood just behind the current Lodge, and took the route of what is now the moat that runs deep in to the woods. The moat came around to flat land and this opened out to the main drive to the front of the house.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/05/historic-liverpool-dwellings-norris.html
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