Historic Liverpool Dwellings - Woolton Hall

 

Initially under the lordship of the holy Catholic order of the Knights Hospitaller from 1180 for 360 years, the land was confiscated by Henry V111 but later restored by Mary 1. Then it was confiscated from the order in 1559 under Elizabeth 1 and was kept by the crown until 1609. Eventually, it came under the ownership of the Brettarghs of Holt who were reputed to have acquired it from an ancient family named 'de Woolton'. On the death of William Brettargh in 1609, the land was described as being home to a cottage. Sometime between 1700 and 1704, the house and surrounding estate was sold to the politician Richard Molyneux who built the northern block of the hall. In 1772, Woolton Hall was acquired by Nicholas Ashton a wealthy Liverpool merchant whose father was one of the original undertakers and the principal financier of Sankey Canal, the first canal of the British industrial revolution. Nicholas had it extensively renovated by the influential architect Robert Adam, with the building being praised as the finest example of Adam's work in the North of England. From its outside, the slate roofed two-storey structure is built entirely of stone consisting of seven bay windows, two of which break forward under pediments The windows have architraves and are sashed with glazing bars.

Nicholas Ashton died in 1833 leaving the house to his son Joseph Ashton who in turn left it to his son Charles Ellis Ashton. Charles Ellis later sold the house in 1865 to James Reddecliffe Jeffery who was the owner of Liverpool's largest department store, Compton House, now the Marks & Spencer store in Church Street. Now residing at Woolton Hall, he had the façade of the building re-fronted in 1865 again by Robert Adam to include a roofed structure from the entrance of a building over an adjacent driveway to shelter those getting in or out of vehicles. This consists of four paired Doric columns between rusticated antae, entablature and balustrade. Through the front entrance is a large marble floor lobby with an imposing fireplace and is flanked by two main halls. Adjacent to the fireplace are three doors with the leftmost allowing access to a kitchen area and a stairwell. The door directly to the fireplace's left leads to an octagonal shaped turquoise room with a decorated ceiling that contains a circular painting of Frederic Leighton's 'The Garden of Hesperides'. The door on the right leads to the main staircase of the building. On the right side of the building is a parque floor dance hall with two large front facing windows. The adjoining tapestry room, with high ceilings and oak panelled walls, is an elongated semi-circular area decorated with mostly Flemish paintings and two glass candle-style chandeliers. The principal staircase which ascends to the second floor is another of Adam's original features, consisting of wrought iron baluster and moulded mahogany handrail. The upper floors boast large opens rooms with original Adam's ceilings, as well as many smaller rooms which have acted as bedrooms and classrooms throughout the hall's history

 

Sadly in 1865 a fire, started in suspicious circumstances, destroyed his shop premises in Church Street which eventually led to the business failing. Jeffrey put the Hall up for auction in 1869 but it failed to find a buyer until 1877, following his death, when Liverpool shipowner Frederick Richards Leyland purchased it and moved in with his family from nearby Speke Hall. He was somewhat of an art enthusiast and decorated the house with paintings of varying styles before selling the building to the McGuffies, a family of shipowners who demolished the west wing and converted the remainder into a Hydropathic Hotel. After living there for some 30 years, the hotel closed in 1912. After a short spell as the headquarters of the Middlesex Regiment and as an army hospital in the 1950s, the building was converted into a fee-paying girl's school under the management of the Convent of Notre Dame and in 1970 merged with Notre Dame High School on Mount Pleasant to form Notre Dame Woolton. In 1983, Notre Dame Woolton merged with La Sagesse, a school of the Daughters of Wisdom on Aigburth Road in Holmleigh, and adopted its current name, St Julie's Catholic High School. This led to Woolton Hall being abandoned and it soon fell into disrepair, eventually being marked for demolition in the 1980s. 

The building was saved after local resident John Hibbert purchased the Hall and spent £100,000 in refurbishments and soon after, on the 28th of June 1982, Woolton Hall became a Grade 1 listed building. In 2005, there were plans to convert the house into a retirement home and build 62 other new retirement flats on the grounds of the estate. Then, in 2021, following years of stagnation and incidents of vandalism, plus a successful campaign against its destruction, the building was added to Historic England's 'Heritage at Risk Register' as a category A site, the highest priority, meaning the building is at immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric. The building is structurally stable, boarded-up and the entire site is surrounded with fencing and high walls in an attempt to prevent vandalism.The struggle goes on!

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