Around The Height
'Earlston House', now part of the Central Library, was originally a private residence. Initially the house belonged to John Ashley Marsden, of Liscard Castle, but its origins are a little obscure. An older house incorporated in it to some extent is shown on early maps as Old Liscard Manor House but that title appears to have been transferred in 1841 to the residence then known as 'Sea Bank', at the foot of Manor Lane. It was probably then that the name of the house was changed to 'Rose Mount', possibly by George Grant, who in the year mentioned moved here from his existing residence in Rodney Street, Liverpool.
Mr Grant, a magistrate, was a member of the firm of John Gladstone & Co., Merchants, of Castle Street and Union Court, Liverpool, and was thus a partner of Sir John Gladstone, Baronet, Member of Parliament, and father of William Ewart Gladstone, later Prime Minister. Sir John was a founder-member of the Athenaeum in Liverpool, and as far back as 1814, shortly after the Honourable East India Company's monopoly had been broken, he and George Grant despatched the first ship, the 'Kingsmill', from Liverpool to India, the round voyage being completed fifteen months later.
On the 7th and 8th January, 1838, Merseyside was struck by a tremendous hurricane, and as a result many ships were in difficulty. At least two, the 'Pennsylvania' and 'The Lockwoods', were driven ashore near Leasowe with great loss of life, some of the crew and passengers of the former being buried in St. Hilary's Churchyard. Great hardship was caused to the dependants, and the occurrence resulted in the immediate formation of the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society. George Grant, who was then Chairman of the West India Association, and numbered among his other activities membership of the Liverpool Committee for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans and Clergymen, and the Vice-Presidency of the Liverpool Friendly Society, later the Liverpool Savings Bank, served on the permanent committee of the Shipwreck Society from its inception until 1860.
In 1855, however, he left 'Rose Mount' for Gambier Terrace, Liverpool, and was succeeded by Thomas Addison, of Horsfall & Addison , Stockbrokers, who had previously been living in Mount Road. After two years at 'Rose Mount' Mr Addison departed for 'Gorselands', a large house standing at the corner of Albion Street and Atherton Street, and 'Rose Mount' was then purchased by Robert Bell, a Tea Merchant, from the Executors of J.A Marsden, deceased. He was joined in 1860 by his son-in-law and partner, Lowry Mann, eldest son of William Mann of 'Zig Zag House'. In those days the grounds of the house, roughly 23 acres in extent, stretched as far as Seaview Road, and there must have been a pleasant outlook for the rear windows. Lowry Mann, like his father before him, had served a term as Churchwarden at St. Hilary's, and he frequently lent the lower field to the Sunday School for its annual "Treat".
It was about this time that the name was changed to 'Earlston House', a title which held good throughout the rest of its life as a private house. Robert Bell, who had continued to live at the house, died in 1878, and in 1883 Lowry Mann sold the estate to the Trustees of Anthony Gordon Smith for occupation by Mr Smith, a partner in the cotton broking firm of Smith, Edwards & Co., who were reputed to have made a lot of money at the time of the American Civil War. On Mr Smith's death in 1898, at the early age of 48, the property was purchased by the Corporation from his Executors for £20,000, and the Library was opened the following year. Thanks to a grant of £9,000 from the Carnegie Trust in 1908, the present extension was built and brought into use in 1911. The old house lost a wing in an air-raid in the last war, and the present staff car park now occupies the site.
Lowry Mann did not survive his departure from 'Earlston House' for very long, as he died in 1887 at the age of 52, and lies in St. Hilary's Churchyard with his wife who had followed him in 1890, and their only child, a daughter, Mary Margaret who had married and died in Bridgnorth, aged 45, in 1905.
Opposite the Central Library, in the days before the present Kirkway was cut through, there was an earlier Kirkway. It ran between Mount Pleasant Road and Earlston Road, adjacent to what later became a hockey ground of the High School, and later an extension of the School itself, then, as it today, new housing. At the Earlston Road end of the footpath, on the opposite corner to Kirk Cottages, stood stables belonging to a large house, fronting on to Mount Pleasant Road, opposite Mount Road, and known as 'Breck Hey'. Records show that in 1832 the site was part of land owned by John Ashley Marsden, of 'Liscard Castle', and that the house must have been erected within the next few years, as it was known to have been occupied by Palgrave Simpson, a well known Solicitor, who came from London in the 1850's to join the firm known as Simpson, North, Harley & Co.
Mr Simpson, having spent ten years in Wallasey, moved to Liverpool, and the estate was then sold by the Trustees of J.A Marsden, deceased, to Edward Hodgson Harrison, partner in Whitaker, Whitefield & Co., Brokers of Liverpool, a Director of the old Bank of Liverpool, Deputy Chairman of the London & Lancashire Fire Insurance Company, and a brother of Thomas and James Harrison, the shipowner's, the latter of whom was also a Wallasey resident. The purchase price was £3,589, and in 1870 Mr Harrison added to the estate by acquiring the Mill Field adjacent to the property, at a cost of £900, thus bringing the total area to something over four acres.
In 1884, Edward Harrison, who does not appear to have participated in the running of his brothers' ships, although he was a shareholder, sold the entire property to T.Raffles Bully, a Cotton Broker, for £4,000, and moved to Eastham. where he had built for him large mansion known as 'Plymyard', and where he finally died in 1907 at the age of 82. Mr Bulley, who as a partner in S.M Bulley & Son, the well known Liverpool Cotton Broker and Merchants, was a man of considerable wealth, was nevertheless a Socialist who believed in assisting the under-dog, and life in the family home was not over-luxurious as a result, his four daughters being brought up to appreciate the value of money. Apart from the fact that he became a Wallasey Alderman, he was a brother of the founder of Ness Gardens, and was associated with him in the formation of Bees Limited, the seedsmen.
In 1909 Alderman Bulley sold 6,471 square yards of land, part of 'Breck Hey' estate, to Cheshire County Council for £1,500 in connection with the establishment of the hockey ground mentioned earlier, and following his death in 1921 his Executors sold the house and the remaining land to Wallasey Corporation in 1923, for £5,000. In 1925 the present Kirkway was cut through, and the land on either side was sold to builders for the erection of the semi-detached houses which are there today. 'Breck Hey' itself was demolished at the same time. According to a niece of Alderman Bulley, the house was yellow-washed, and contained among other things a billiard room where plays could be staged. She remembered the large family parties at Christmas and other similar times, and mentioned that in those days, with belching chimneys and ship's funnels, it used to be said that one got black with soot just by walking in the 'Breck Hey' garden. Another lady has stated that she could remember visiting 'Breck Hey' when she was a child, and for a treat being allowed to go into the greenhouses to water the aspidistras!
This residence, which stood in what is now Seaview Road, approaching Hoseside, in grounds of approximately five acres, has been widely published, and as a result many people are familiar with its history. When, by whom and for whom it was originally built appears to have become lost in the mists of time, but as far back 1819 it was advertised as being to let in the 'Liverpool Mercury', being then known as 'Marina Villa'. At that stage it was described as "commanding delightful and extensive marine and land prospects, including St. George's Channel, Bootle Bay, the River Mersey, Bidston Lighthouse. the Welsh Hills, the Town of Liverpool" and so on. It had not yet officially emerged who took up the residency of the house in those early days, but in 1836 the estate was purchased by a man who was to leave his mark on both the religious life and the development of Wallasey. He was John Ashley Marsden, a Brush Manufacturer in a substantial way of business in Liverpool, and a great friend of Dr. Raffles, the famous divine, who himself lived in Wellington Road, New Brighton, for many years.
In view of Marsden subsequent connection with Wallasey it is worth giving some details of his background. Born on 30th January 1793, to parents who were members of the old Newington Chapel in Liverpool, he entered the family brush-making business, and on 19th October 1814 married Ann Maria Singleton at St. Michael's Parish Church, Coventry, later to become Coventry Cathedral. His wife was slightly the elder of the two, having been born on 15th October 1790. The union produced ten children, but as was only too common in those days, not all of them reached maturity. The eldest, a daughter named Hannah, born in 1815, lived only six years, being buried in Newington Chapel Yard. The next arrival, another daughter Sarah Ann, made her bow in 1817, and in 1844 married John Fitzhugh, an Accountant. She died in 1871, at the age of 53 when living in New Brighton, and was buried in St. Hilary's Churchyard, but her husband, later living in West Kirby, lived to be 81, and finally also found a resting place at St. Hilary's in 1902. The third child, also a girl Helen, arrived in 1819, and was married to a Liverpool Merchant and Shipowner, Edward Oliver, in 1843. After the weeding they took residence in Church Street, Wallasey, and stayed there for four years. In 1846 they were to be found at Upton, but four years later they had crossed the Mersey to Lark Lane, Sefton. However, Wallasey must still have had its attractions for them, as in 1855 they came to live at 'Clifton Hall', presumably as tenants, and remained there until 1857, when Edward, who had owned his first ship at the age of 18, was involved in a slump which occurred about that time, and was obliged to assign his assets to Trustees, although he predicted that this action would result in the failure of the Liverpool Borough Bank and Barned's, which in fact it did. He was adjudged bankrupt, and the family moved to Ivy Street, Birkenhead, but after 1860 all mention of them ceased in the local directory, and it transpired that they had emigrated to Australia.
The story now moves on over thirty years to 1893, when Oliver wrote from Freemantle to the 'Daily News' in London, supporting efforts to revive one or two Banks then in difficulties. He quoted his own case, when out of the blue had come the news that a London company which had been in existence for over 100 years had owned him £100,000, had suspended payments. At that time, Oliver stated, he was the owner of 142 ships all registered in his own name and free of mortgage, and valued by Rankin Gilmour & Co. of Liverpool at well over £1,000,000. In addition he owned two collieries at Rainford, together with railway sidings, horses, carts and so on, all fully occupied in delivering coal to Liverpool, unencumbered house property in Liverpool, and a palm-oil plant at Benin in West Africa, not to mention £75,000 in cash and bills in his safe. According to him these assets were disposed of at what he described as slaughtered prices, and finally realised only £600,000, which apparently was not enough to clear his debts. Shortly after writing this letter Oliver died at Perth, Western Australia.
The next child, a boy, was born in 1821 and christened John Astley after his father, but survived only six weeks. The next arrival, Louise Rich Singleton, born in 1823, was more fortunate, and at the age of 20 married William Gardner, described as a Shipowner, Merchant, Corn and Provision Broker. Yet another daughter, Maria, was born in 1825, followed in 1827 by a son, John Rich, who subsequently married and probably continued to live at the family home. However, the Marsden's troubles were not yet over as the next two children, both boys, Francis and George, lived for six days and 2½ years respectively, but finally another boy, William Frederick, born in 1832, grew up to qualify as a doctor, and moved to Birmingham.
When John Astley Marsden acquired 'Marina Villa' he re-named it 'Liscard Castle'. although the nature of his business occupation led to it becoming known as 'Brush Castle' and even 'Marsden Folly'. In those days the road affording access to the property was a private one known, appropriately, as Marsden's Lane, with locked gates at the Hoseside end. It's appearance then was vastly different, compared with today. There is rather conflicting evidence as to which house John did originally occupy, in as much as the 1841 Tithe Map indicates that there were two houses adjacent to one another, 'Marina Villa', as already mentioned, and 'Sea View', which stood between it and Hoseside, and the street directories do, in fact, give John as living at 'Sea View' in 1841 and 1843. Two years later he is shown as being at 'Liscard Castle', and it would seem that he lived there until his death in 1853, although it is possible that he let the Castle to a Mr & Mrs Green, the last mentioned conducting a Ladies' Seminar there. John's business at the time was known as Marsden & Sons, and was situated in South John Street, Liverpool.
It is known that 'Liscard Castle' was ultimately converted into three separate residences, known respectively as 'The Castle', 'The Turrets' and 'The Towers', but this must have taken place in John's lifetime, as the 1851 Census Returns indicate that he was living at 'Liscard Castle', while his son-in-law, William Gardner and his family, consisting of his wife and at least four children, were in residence at 'The Turrets'. At the same time 'Marina Villa' was stated to be occupied by Elizabeth Watts, a teacher who conducted a good-class school there, attended by the teenage daughters of well-to-do local residents, but whether or not this name had been resurrected and applied to one of the sections of 'Liscard Castle' it is not possible to say at this late date.
'Marina Villa' cum 'Liscard Castle' was designed in a Gothic style with octagonal turrets,towers, embattled parapets, pointed arches, finials, buttresses and pinnacles. So when the name was changed to 'Liscard Castle' it was an apt description for it did resemble a domestic castle. The general finish was in stucco, (which is hard plaster) and painted, possibly a grey colour. When Mr. Marsden bought the place it extended right up to the road and it may well have been when the house was converted to three dwellings (and it was big enough for that) that this was demolished, and a raised bank formed sloping up to the front of the building. At this time a new gateway was formed from Seaview Road with a gate and drive leading to a new side entrance having a flight of stone steps and >
