Introduction (continued)

If the crossroads was the focus of Gateacre Village, the first building of significance was the Chapel, licensed "for a meeting place for an Assembly of Protestants dissenting from the Church of England" on 14th October 1700. The design must owe something to the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth, but that was about 80 years earlier, so more useful comparisons may be drawn with Chapels at Knutsford, Macclesfield and Wilmslow nearer to it in date.

Anciently Gateacre was in the great parish of Childwall, its own Church of St. Stephen was not completed until 1874.

The Liverpool Extension Order of 1913 was the end of the independence of Little Woolton, but the rural character of the village persisted until Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. In the next 10 years suburban development really began and by 1969, so great were the pressures of development, that the City Council declared the centre of the village a Conservation Area. In 1975 the D.o.E. revised the List of Buildings of Architectural or Historic Interest - including much of what we shall see.

The guides on this walk would like to emphasise that this is their first reconnoitre of the locality, they are feeling their way and have no complete knowledge; they base their statements on features that strike them and their enthusiasm for architecture, they hope to gather information from you on the way.

VILLAGE GREEN

Wilson Memorial (drinking) Fountain. 1883 (He was the engineer who brought water from Vyrnwy & lived at Lee Park). Hexagonal red sandstone with Gothic gargoyle, Jacobethan strapwork, French Renaissance frieze and cartouches, Art Nouveau hints in spandrels.

Jubilee Memorial. 1887, red granite, 3 steps and square plinth with attached angle columns, bronze dressings, supporting bronze bust of Queen Victoria, signed "Gleichen fecit 1887".

continued . . .