WOODCROFT (continued)

Mrs Rathbone was followed immediately by Mrs Herbert Savile (Shaw, Savile Line), she was Margaret Helena Kate the eldest daughter of Mrs Chapple Gill then living at Lower Lee.

In 1932 the house was empty, but from 1933 to at least 1936 David Shepherd Douglas lived here.

STRAWBERRY FIELD built c.1867 (demolished 1960s)

Architectural description - Large Victorian Gothic house built of local brick ("Garston picked commons" as in the Village Club), with sandstone dressings and window surrounds. The entrance front, to the North, was a 3-storey block of 4 bays, the centre two stepped forward, with a gable over the left centre bay above a large 4-light staircase window with a circular window containing 3 quatrefoils above it. The other bays were lit with 2-light windows of varying designs, they had string courses at floor levels and steeply pitched dormers. To the left was a 2~storey wing. The opposite (South) garden front had 2 single storey canted bay windows in the left half, to the right a 2-storey rectangular bay with castellated top.

Stylistically - this was a thoroughly Gothic mansion in the mainstream of the Sir Gilbert Scott manner, that is to say using the features of the time, polychromy, steeply pitched roofs and gables in a straightforward way - neither wilfully nor with originality - as did the High Victorian architects. (From 2 photographs lent by the Salvation Army)

Owners and Occupants - this house was built for George Warren (1819-1880) a shipowner, born in Surrey, who had come to Liverpool in 1853 with his American born wife Mary Ann to manage the Liverpool office of the White Diamond Line of Boston. At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 the firm transferred its ships to the British flag and made Liverpool the headquarters of, henceforth, the Warren Line. The first steamship was employed in 1863, but it was not until 1877 that the last sailing ships ceased service with the line, noted for importing cattle. George Warren in 1867 was in Grove Park, in 1868 at Strawberry Field and the 1871 census showed him a widower with 5 children, living with his mother-in-law and 7 servants. On 10.10.1880 he died at Bellagio, Italy leaving in his will just under £250,000.

continued . . .