OAKFIELD AVENUE

Oakfield. Datestone '1865', in rockfaced sandstone, typical of the High Victorian parsonage house, with touches of muscular Gothic and including a corbelled turret as seen on Scottish castles (bartizan) - Balmoral Castle was built 1852-4 - and a variety of windows, note especially the unusual stone transomed windows with double hung sashes set behind them, c.f., St. John's Vicarage, Middlesborough, of 1865. Internally the hall is Gothic but marble fireplaces are in the Classical tradition. History closely linked with Oakfield Terrace q.v.; if we read the monogram correctly as E. & M. H - in 1845 George Bennion (by that time of Oakfield Terrace ?) bought the site; in 1865 his trustees conveyed it to Elkanah Healey (c.1816 - 1893) who then built the house setting upon it a monogram of the initials of himself and his wife (Mary, nee Bennion); in 1902 his daughter Florence, born in the Parish of Childwall c.1846, sold the house to G.W. Mumford (The Corporation of Liverpool bought the house in 1946.) Elkanah Healey was a founder member and first Chapel Steward of St. James Methodist Church, Woolton (built 1866, architect C.O.Ellison)

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