Sources (continued):

Census returns from 1841 to 1881. Wills and Probate Records, Much Woolton Local Board minutes, letter books, and Rates Books. Little Woolton Local Board minutes, papers etc, and Rates Books. John Gore's Directories of Liverpool, published for New Year. Orchard's Legion of Honour 1893.

Newspapers of the time: and here we must say how much Miss Joan Borrowscale has helped with great resourcefulness & backtracking expertise. We have found useful material in odd places - not least in the annotations on old photographs from Miss Houghton's collection which, now, have twice contributed to 'first' owners.

Introduction to Woolton Park and its environs

The area we originally took for our study - from Riffel Lodge to Bishop's Lodge - is an area of mid-19th century development dating from c.1856 to 1868. But as an extension we have now added two lodges of later date, and Cliff Cottage which is both earlier and later. The area lies partly in Much Woolton, 10 buildings, and partly in Little Woolton, 4 buildings.

By the middle of the 18th century in Much Woolton cultivated and enclosed land extended from Acrefield Lane to the line A-B on the map. West of this line the top of the hill and its west flank down to Vale Road was part of the 'Commons and Waste Lands' of Childwall, Little Woolton and Much Woolton; marginal land of no corn-growing value, though of great use for communal grazing and stone getting. In Little Woolton the cultivated land did not extend above the line of Rose Brow and Woolton Road, though there was an 'encroachment' on the commons for a house and its grounds at Rose Hill; and by 1768 possibly Gateacre Hall too had been built.

A slight extra steepness can perhaps be traced in Reynolds Park field just within the gate from Woolton Park, by the line A-B, which may be a clue to the reason for the siting of the 18th century old top fence or hedge - below which the land was more fertile and more sheltered. The exposed top of the hill - an area which we may think of as not unlike Thurstaston Common - had only thin soil and scrub.

continued . . .