SANDFIELD ROAD (continued)

On the 1840 Tithe Map (M.W.) it is clear that the block 1, 3 & 5 has been joined by 6 & 7 (which survive) - all now in the ownership of David Webster's daughter Mary & her husband John Hunter, bricklayer of Huyton. The next block, Nos. 8 & 9 appear as cottages owned by Thomas Rodick of 4 Gateacre Brow (q.v.) and the first section of his stable block is also mapped. In the Lower Sandfield it is not quite clear how many cottages have been built, but Nos 5 & 7 belonging to John Mercer, tailor & Nos 9 & 11 belonging to (and built by ?) James Gore, builder, are recorded with occupants of two, Ellis Guy at No.7 and Enoch Davies at No.9, both agricultural labourers, are still in the Rates Book in 1870. The ?barn about the site of No.10 was owned and occupied by Thomas Rushton and described as "garden". As a check on the numbers of houses/households - the 1841 Census shows 10 households in what we compute to be 11 houses (excluding any dwelling in Mr Rodick's stable block).

The 1851 Census indicated 12 households and says nothing of any houses being uninhabited (which this Census recorded), and of the 10 heads of households named in 1841 six names reappear in 1851 (one is the widow of the former tenant). The people who are living in these houses are labourers, artizans, laundresses etc., with one exception: A.J. Watt, Gentleman, born in Middlesex, aged 30 (with servant) - so where was he living ? There is not enough difference in the numbers of households for us to interpret this Census as pointing to any block of new building for the ten year period, full occupation of the houses we have enumerated would account for 12 households.

"The Sandhole"- the name given to Sandfield Road in the first Census 1841, is explained in the Schedule to the 1840 Tithe Map where Plot 162, owned by James Gore, builder, and occupied by him and John Fleetwood is described as "Land and Sandpit" - the area of nearly three-quarters of an acre of which we can still see the remains in Lower Sandfield. If we consider the large houses, Oakfield Terrace, Acrefield, Bankside, Hillcliff to name a few of the nearest, that were built in the 1830s and 1840s, and finished with stucco, the source of the building sand to make the stucco becomes an important consideration, and it must have involved the excavation of hundreds of tons of sand from this pit or hole which has reduced the level to make it now Lower Sandfield. In 1840 James Gore lived at Hillcroft in Church Road, now the home of Mr Chinn, the dentist.

continued . . .