HILLCROFT, Church Road, built c.1810 (±5 years).
Later architect unidentified

In general form and proportions this is the type of '2½ storey' late Georgian two bay house, built in the vernacular tradition, of which a number survive (1 Speke Road, Elmsvale in Belle Vale Road, Acrefield Cottage & Kingsley, Halewood Road). Hillcroft is two rooms 'thick' - technically called 'double pile' - and planned with the front door in the gable end. It is basically stone, and sash windows remain on the garden side where also is a moulded stone cornice projecting 11 ins. This description however does not correspond with the view obtained from Church Road.

There have been a number of alterations:

First c.1835 (or before 1840 because it shows on the Tithe Map) the projecting stone porch with its Tuscan columns was added to protect the front door from the weather on the exposed gable. We note the 'marginal glazing' in the porch window (cf. 3 Huskisson Street) and from the high quality of the work we may presume to identify its builder as James Gore himself.

Second c.1859? a small extension and subsidiary entrance was made at the north end taking advantage of the newly constructed Private Road.

Third c.1900/10 there was a substantial refurbishment which included new casement windows of lower proportions to the first floor front which left the cornices of the former sash windows exposed; the making of much larger ground floor windows - and the 'soldier' arch of the left one strongly suggests supporting steelwork (by that time available); rough casting the whole first floor and refacing the ground floor with a new-style rustic multi-coloured facing brick. The projecting cornice also seems to have been replaced with a simple splayed stone lead lined gutter. The resulting facade has so many stylistic elements associated with the Domestic Revival that the date 1900/10 is indicated. The extent of the surface treatment over the whole of the west and south suggests that the original stone had been perhaps of poor quality and/or had suffered a lot of damage from weather or other causes. (We arrived at the above dates before the list of occupiers was complete; now by following the fluctuations of the Rateable Value we can point to the refurbishment being carried out in 1906-7 for Holbrook Gaskell).

continued . . .