The wealthy Lathom family built the first house on the site back in the reign of James I and during her long widowhood, Elizabeth Lathom, the wife of Richard Lathom, occupied Allerton Hall. Following her death, her second son Edward Lathom was the occupant followed by her grandson Richard. They held the lands of the estate from the 15th to the 17th century, but Richard Lathom, the heir of Parbold and Allerton and a Royalist, fought alongside his uncles in the English Civil War. Richard survived the war but his Estate was "forfeited in the name of treason" by Cromwell's parliament in 1652. The 'Commissioners' of Parliament sold it in 1654 to a John Sumpner of Midhurst, Sussex for £2,700. However the Lathoms, father, mother, and children managed to to hang on to both Parbold and Allerton a little longer and it was not until 1670 that the Sumpners managed to finally eject them by increasing the amount of the original purchase price. When assessments were made for the hearth tax in 1666, Allerton Hall was one of the larger houses in the parish of Childwall with eight hearths; this was exceeded only by Speke Hall with twenty-one hearths. Richard Percival then bought Allerton and owned it from 1670 until 1736, when John Hardman, a West Indies merchant originally from Rochdale, and his brother James, purchased the land for £7,700. Rebuilt of red sandstone with three storeys, it is considered to be the earliest examples of Palladianism in Liverpool. The Hardmans were involved in about 46 slave voyages between 1729 and 1761. When John died in 1754, his brother James moved in with his wife Jane who outlived him, and stayed in the hall until her own death in 1799. She had been friends with the famous lawyer, philanthropist and abolitionist William Roscoe, who then bought the house and resided there.
Roscoe demolished the dangerously under-maintained remaining 17th century parts of the building and added new rooms to balance the design. It is now a symmetrical building, extending over eleven bays with the central three bays and the lateral two bays on each side projecting forward. The central three bays formed a portico with Ionic columns and a pediment and the ground floor was rusticated. Surviving the damage by two fires, in 1994 and in 1995, are a room at the west end which has panelled walls and a stucco ceiling in Rococo style, and parts of Roscoe's library. In the grounds to the west of the house is a sundial dated 1750.
Bankruptcy forced Roscoe to sell his share of the house, and this was bought by one of his political allies, Pattison Ellames. In the 1860s Richard Wright, a cotton merchant and ship owner with family ties to the Fraser, Trenholm & Co merchant company, rented Allerton Hall. Fraser, Trenholm were based in South Carolina and funded the Southern states in their war effort against the North. Many in Liverpool had sided with the South because of the merchants' links with cotton trading, and Richard Wright was one of those. Indeed, in July 1861 the Confederate flag was flown above Allerton Hall. Later in its history, Allerton Hall was owned by Lawrence Richardson Baily, and then Thomas Clarke. Clarke's widow eventually donated the house and land to the city of Liverpool in 1926, and this forms Clarke Gardens today. The Hall was used as the regional headquarters of the National Fire Service during the Second World War and a blockhouse in the grounds of the house is testament to this use.
Today, the Hall in Springwood Avenue is a Grade 11 listed building, with the gate piers, walls and railings on Woolton Road listed in their own right. The renovated house is now the Pub in the Park, and the former hothouse is used by the pub for its dining room.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/06/historic-liverpool-dwellings-crofton.html
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