A plaque in the Formby Chapel at St
Peter's Church, gives the family's direct line of descent from 1305 with the family tracing their origins back to one Ricardus
de Midas, and where in the early 13th Century their original timber-framed manor house
may have stood on the same site as the Hall, probably having a Peel tower and be capable of defence. A doorway belonging to this fortified mansion was incorporated in a newer dwelling erected in 1440 and perhaps also a portion of the wall above the front door of the present Hall belonged to the earliest building. The present house was built in
1523 for William Formby and in the mid 18th century an embattled parapet
was added by John Formby who occupied the hall from 1721 to 1776. He
had built the battlements after seeing similar features on Horace Walpole's
Strawberry Hill in London. The mansion was restored in 1896, but retains many of its medieval features. In 1896 the Hall was modernised by Colonel
John Formby, who lived here from 1853 to 1893, when he added the west wing
drawing room. During WW11
the Hall was continuously occupied by army personnel, with up to 150
soldiers accommodated in the spacious rooms. In the summer of 1949 it was broken into in the early hours through a ground floor window,
with thieves taking keys from a bedroom and ransacking drawers in an
office. The owner, John Frederic Lonsdale Formby, quoted, "I wish I weren't
such a sound sleeper", believing that the burglar must have been
someone very familiar with the house and its layout. Among some of the
valuables taken were silver ashtrays, cameras and cash. In 1958 the Formby family line was broken with the death
of the last squire, Colonel John Frederick Lonsdale Formby. Both of his
sons were killed in action during World War II and thus left no direct
male heir to inherit the estate. The estate went to a nephew who was an
Australian branch member of the Formby family. Much of the land was
sold off for property development while the hall itself lay lay empty
for many years before falling into a state of disrepair. In the 1970s,
John Moores Jnr acquired a lease for the hall and the grounds and used
them as a rest home for children from the deprived areas of Liverpool
who were brought here and looked after by members of the Bronte Society.
The Hall stands within extensive grounds facing South East and is of two storeys and built of hand-made brick, much restored and renovated with the use of modern brick. The South East front has been given a coating of cement, but the original stone-mullioned windows have here been retained, though the hood-moulds are copies in cement. Windows in the North West side are modern as are the chimneys and the grey slate roofs. At the North corner is a wing of contemporary date with a modern upper storey, and at the West corner is a modern wing of brick. Against the North East end are modern offices. Other outbuildings are also modern, with the exception of a large barn to the North East and the Dovecot, a rectangular structure, to the North West, which are built of hand-made bricks, with small oval-shaped windows. The farm has some decorative diamond-shaped brickwork in its North West end, and a stone-slated roof. There is a large fish-pond in the grounds to the South East of the Hall.
By the 1980s, the Hall was once again disused and fell into dereliction. After this, Richard Irving acquired the whole Formby estate in the early 1990s. At that time it was a run down collection of derelict buildings and overgrown land. After two years he sold the Hall to another local businessman, who bought it as ‘site as seen' without even conducting a survey and has since restored the hall to its former glory. The remaining land was sold to other local businessmen who developed a golf course known as Formby Hall Golf Club PLC. Following an extensive £15 million development, it has been stylishly and comprehensively transformed from unused marshland into one of the leading and most picturesque resorts in the country and is now referred to as Formby Hall Golf Resort and Spa. It now welcomes guests and employees to an impressive new experience, where the grand colonial style clubhouse and existing 18 hole championship golf course has been joined by a 62 bedroom 4 star hotel, a superb new 9 hole par 3 course, a new driving range and a unique new PGA Residential Academy, together with a state of the art spa and health club.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/10/historic-liverpool-dwellings-roby-hall.html
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