Hart Hill stood as one of the grandest mansion houses in Liverpool, but few images exist of what it looked like. lt took centre place in a large private estate in what was a slice of rural Lancashire on the outskirts of Liverpool and had been a house that played its part in the great days of Liverpool when the many of the wealthy earned their fortunes as Liverpool grew to become the world’s greatest seaports.
The Perceval family were great land owners in what is now known as the Calderstones area. The very name commanded respect if not deference, and it was said that one member of the Perceval family had been personally thanked by Queen Elizabeth I for the part he played in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. One family member, Stanley Orred Perceval, a successful Liverpool merchant, decided in the 1820s to build himself a fine house, which he called Hart Hill. He lived there with his wife Elizabeth, both of them well connected and wealthy. His wife's family owned the warehouses known as the Goree Piazzas and Stanley was a close relative of the Rt Hon Spencer Perceval who became the one and only Prime Minister of Britain to have been assassinated.
Then, in 1848, Stanley Perceval sold Hart Hill House and the estate to another
wealthy Liverpool businessman, John Bibby who was married to Fanny, the
daughter of Liverpool's famous dock builder Jesse Hartley, credited with
the creation of what is now our World Heritage Site.
John Bibby II was a merchant around 1840 and the main lodge on Harthill Road probably dates from that time. He was the second son of John Bibby I, the shipping magnate and founder of the Bibby Line in 1805. Later, but before 1890, a second lodge was constructed on Calderstones Road. The path that still runs alongside this lodge into Calderstones Park is what remains of the original driveway. John II died in 1883 and his 2nd wife Emily continued to live at Hart Hill until her death in 1899. The house was taken over by John Bibby III in 1883. His eldest son John Hartley Bibby lived away and the house passed to the younger son of John II and Fanny, Alfred Bibby, in 1898.
Jesse
Hartley lived in Bootle where an obscure and unlettered granite column
was erected in his honour. Somehow this insignificant looking memorial
was removed to Hart Hill, and today stands close to the glasshouse, the
one-time entrance to the magnificent botanical glass houses.
According
to Col. Alfred Bibby the pillar was brought to Hart Hill by his father
John Bibby following the death of Jesse Hartley. The granite pillar had
been sent to Hartley by a quarry owner as a specimen during negotiations
for his dock building programme.
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| Top left is the Hart Hill part of what is Calderstones Park |
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| The gates that once protected the Hart Hill mansion |
As
the 19th century was drawing to a close Bibby’s wife died and the
entire Hart Hill estate was sold for potential building development. Fortunately that
development did not happen, and the house was, in the first decade of the 20th century, sold to St.
Helens glass manufacturer Charles Joseph Bishop a local magistrate. Later it became the temporary headquarters
of the city police F division until their new headquarters was built in
Allerton Road. That is when the council stepped forward to buy the estate and most of the grounds were sold toLiverpool Corporation in 1913 to form the Harthill Estate
extension to Calderstones Park. He may have moved out at that time
because his death was registered in Prescot. Following this the house
fell into disuse and was demolished in the early 1930s and now only the lodges survive, but the gates to the mansion at Harthill remain as one of the entrances to Calderstones Park.
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