Historic Liverpool Dwellings - May Place

 

According to the book, 'A Pictorial History of Old Swan and Tuebrook' by Colin Gould, May Place, in Broadgreen Road, was built in about 1760 by William Williamson, a man who was involved in about 20 slave voyages between 1742 and 1771. He was part owner of one of four Mersey privateer ships, the 'Old Noll' which is described in the Liverpool registers as a 'hackboat' sterned ship of 250 tons, built at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1743, and registered at Liverpool in 1744. It was sunk in 1745. His house, May Place was brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. It was 2 storeys high with basements, and later an attic, and had 5 bays, with the central 3 bays breaking forward under the pediment. The basement had a lintel band, a ground floor sill band and cornice over the lst floor. The windows had casements and the attic was sashed with glazing bars. A central Doric porch with pediment had steps to returns and front balustrade and statue, with the window above having architrave, frieze and consoled segmental pediment. It is rare example of an 18th-century merchant's villa.

circa 1908

Later residents here were Mr Papayanni, the Greek shipowner whose line, run mainly with English crews, was one of the main British Steamship lines that ran to the Black Sea; a Mr Spence, who allowed the local Methodists to hold their first meetings in his garden; a Mr Austin who apparently had 20 children; Reverend Wilson, Chaplain to Lord Derby held a school there until the drowning of a boy in a nearby pond brought about its later closure and finally Mr Walker, a wholesale grocer. Then in 1876 it was taken over by the Liverpool Catholic Reformatory Association who opened a Reformatory School here for Roman Catholic girls replacing their previous institution in St. Helens which had closed as it had become too small and inconvenient in its location. It was big enough to accommodate 70 girls and was managed by a Sister Superior assisted by three Sisters of Charity together with a laundress and gardener. In 1910 a new wing was completed containing a laundry and chapel with the former chapel converted to schoolroom and the old schoolroom becoming a sewing room. The school was closed in 1922.  

It then became St. Vincents Hospice, appearing as such on a 1927 map of the area, and by the 1940s was also named St Vincent's Hospice for the Dying, with Sister Anthony as Superioress. Rory Storm's father Ernie used to visit St. Vincent's Hospice on Broadgreen Road a lot in his spare time when it was mainly a geriatric home for old ladies. He used to bring them books, magazines, sweets etc. The Hospice fell into disrepair and reopened under its original name of May Place as Sheltered Housing accommodation. 

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/11/historic-liverpool-dwellings-newsham.html