SANDFIELD ROAD

Introduction

We have not found Sandfield Road on any map until it makes a shy unnamed appearance on Jonathan Bennison's Map of Liverpool of 1835; but the intention to make a road here, leading off from Gateacre Brow, at the lower (East) end of the Chapel site, was stated in a deed of 1818, and there is reference back to a deed of 1753 which may have held one germ of the idea.

The development of this part of the back-land at one quarter of the Gateacre cross roads seems to have been the enterprise of lesser landowners with no participation from the great and wealthy - Gascoynes, Ashtons, Okills etc. - of the area, and it is also noticeable that most (?) of the owners were members of the congregation of Gateacre Chapel. In the C18 economic prosperity and expansion was continuing in this area, probably stimulated by the rapid expansion of Liverpool which provided an outlet for produce. The count of households in the 1662 Hearth Tax gives 34 for Little Woolton, by the 1821 Census there were 108. Referring to the L.W. statistics in discussing the Sandfield is most improper as the area lies in the township of Much Woolton and forms part of M.W's statistics - but the development of the Gateacre cross roads and Sandfield Rd. appears, from consideration of maps, to partake much more of the nature of L.W's development, so - we offer the Little Woolton figures as an indication of the rate o growth which seems applicable here.

As far as we have been able to unravel the story, the first houses built beside the "new intended road, 5 yds wide" were Nos 1, 3 & 5 (we use modern numbering throughout) which were immediately S. of the Chapel, on a plot sold by John Weston of M.W. mcht. to David Webster, labourer in Jan. 1818 - and it seems that John Weston bought the plot from Robert Roskell the clockmaker, of Gateacre Hall, in May 1813. Just who built the cottages, and when, is not disclosed by the deeds, but they were there by 1818. (Demolished in 1950s.)

On the 1835 map, which is small in scale, these 3 cottages appear as a block, another block on the opposite side of the road could represent Nos. 1 & 3 Lower Sandfield, and a ?barn shows just beyond the second bend, about the site of No.10. and that seems to be the extent of the development.

continued . . .