Although officially absorbed into the City of Liverpool in 1913 - and having been connected to Liverpool Central station by the Cheshire Lines railway from 1879 onwards - Gateacre and the rest of Little Woolton remained remarkably rural until after the Second World War. It was only in the 1960s that a rash of new building - housing estates off Grange Lane, and a utilitarian shopping parade - threatened to engulf the old village. At the same time, several of Gateacre's mature trees faced destruction. The result was the imposition of Liverpool's first Tree Preservation Order - to protect the trees around the former perimeter of Gateacre Grange - and the designation of Gateacre Village as one of the city's first Conservation Areas.

© COPYRIGHT Mike Chitty