History Pages from the Gateacre Society
No.28 Gateacre Brow – A Brief History
Compiled for HERITAGE OPEN DAY 13th September 2014
No 28 Gateacre Brow is a stuccoed, two-storey shop and showroom, built before 1835 as a shop with living quarters behind and above. Although not a listed building, it is one of the older buildings within the Gateacre Village Conservation Area. The shell of the building survives intact, but it has undergone significant change internally, having been converted, circa 1890, from three storeys to two storeys with a new shopfront and first-floor front window inserted.
The illustrations above show how the building looked in 1881 and how it looks today. The watercolour, by Liverpool artist Hugh Magenis, was painted as a gift for Rebecca Ellinson, who was the daughter of local builder Joseph Ellinson and the step-granddaughter of Yorkshire-born saddler William Westwick (1814-1875) who had owned and occupied the building from about 1851 onwards. The present owner of the painting is Rebecca’s great-granddaughter, Edwina Dorset, who has kindly allowed us to reproduce it as a reminder of the many happy hours which the grandchildren of Hannah Westwick (previously Turton) spent there.
The 1881 painting also shows the saddler’s shop next door, on the corner of Sandfield Road, which was pulled down in 1889 for the building of a new telephone exchange and shops. William Westwick’s second wife had continued to run the business after his death, hence the signboard reads ‘Mary Westwick, saddle & harness maker’. She employed a master saddler called Robert Riding, who in 1897 took over the business (which by then was at No.28 only) and ran it until his death in 1901. Robert was followed by his second son John, age 20, who left Gateacre circa 1904 to seek work elsewhere.
Robert Riding, born 1850, and his wife Sarah had come to Gateacre by way of Ormskirk and West Derby by 1879. They had five daughters and four sons. The Gateacre Society has copies of two photographs taken outside the shop at 28 Gateacre Brow. The first, taken in the late 1890s, is of Robert with his wife Sarah (and grandchild?) and the second, circa 1902, shows young John with his new wife Esther.
The premises were originally divided into three separate dwellings, numbered 28, 30 and 32, with living quarters for two households above and at the rear of the saddler’s shop. The 1871 Census lists William Westwick, saddler, at No.28, Isaac Ireland, agricultural labourer, at No.30 and Mary Cross, laundress, at No.32. In 1911, William A. Martin is recorded as the owner of all three, as well as the tiny cottage next door at No.34. The access to Nos 30 and 32 was via the side passage. Until about twenty years ago there was a garden gate at the end of this passage bearing the No.32, and a door at the side marked No.30.
The last saddler to occupy the shop was Thomas H. Mullock, of Garston, but by the time of the 1911 census he had moved his workshop to 3 Halewood Road around the corner. By 1914 Mrs Eveline Hitchen had moved her greengrocery from Halewood Road into No.28 Gateacre Brow, and she was still there in the 1950s. Then in the 1960s and 70s the shop was Joan Molyneux’s hair salon. In the 1980s and 90s the building lay empty, but in 2004 it was purchased by Fairview Windows Ltd. They used it as a double glazing showroom, and installed the conservatory at the back of the shop. Then once again the building lay unoccupied, until 2014.
No.28 Gateacre Brow is now, once more, an attractive venue, known as ‘Antiques and Art’. A variety of collectables are on display including artworks, antique objects and furniture. It was by kind permission of the present owner that The Gateacre Society was able to hold a one-day photographic exhibition on 13th September 2014, as part of the national Heritage Open Days programme.
From a leaflet published by
THE GATEACRE SOCIETY
Text © COPYRIGHT Beryl Plent and Mike Chitty 2014
Watercolour image © COPYRIGHT Edwina Dorset