BAYCLIFF Owners and Occupiers (continued):

On 8.12.1898 James Thornely died and his wife moved to Grassendale, dying there in 1919. From 1901 to c.1917 the occupier was George Rathbone who was an iron merchant. He was the son of Benson Rathbone of Aigburth and he and his family were members of The Sandon Studios Society and took part in their drama group for which Mrs Rathbone was a successful producer. We have records of two evenings in 1913 when there was a play and a concert when Reginald Rathbone played the cello and Albert Sammons (of Palm Court fame) played the violin.

In 1920 the house was sold by James Thornely's exors to Kenneth Grant MacLeod, iron merchant, and some land was sold to Sir James P. Reynolds of Reynolds Park. In 1925 the owner became Murray Todd, an iron and steel merchant, who bought back some land from Reynolds after the fire at Reynolds Park, since when Sir James had left Woolton and gone to live at 12 Abercromby Square.

During the last war the house was requisitioned by the Government and used as a service hospital. In 1944 it was bought by Harold Neale of Allerton, a house furnisher who sold it to the Church Commissioners in 1948.

The Little Woolton Township Quarry as defined at the Enclosures lay between the back drive of Bishop's Lodge and Cliff Cottage, the area now Parkwood Road. In 1874 Joseph Stubbs, then of 'Dennison's House', wrote to the L.W.L.B. offering to make an 'alteration' to this quarry (landscaping?) if he could be 'given good title to it'. We learn from the subsequent resolution that the 'use was vested in every landowner in Little Woolton' as he was told; and gather that the quarry was still capable of being worked. It is remembered as having been even deeper than the next quarry up the road.

continued . . .