As people drive through Garston and Speke, on their journeys in and out of the City or to visit the local retail, commercial, and enterprise parks, few realise that this entire district, with its large residential community, is a place of historic importance and with a considerable heritage.
Garston Village
Garston is one of Liverpool’s many ‘lost villages’ and it stands on the banks of the River Mersey between Speke and Grassendale, 5½ miles south of the City. Its name derives from the Saxon word ‘Gaerstun’, meaning ‘grazing settlement’, and the original Manor of Garston was once part of the ancient parish of Childwall.
There are now two parts to the district, the first of which is bisected by Woolton Road – on which stand the local bus terminus and an attractively laid-out shopping centre, and also by the more down-at-heel and older shopping street of St. Mary’s Road. The second part of Garston lies between the railway bridge and the river, which is where the original village became established, and is known as ‘Garston-Under-The-Bridge’, for reasons that are apparent.
For around 300 years, until the Reformation in the early 16th century, much of what was then South Lancashire was the property of the Cistercian Order of Monks, who had local monasteries at Whalley Abbey near Clitheroe, and at Stanlawe Abbey in what was then Cheshire – on the Wirral Peninsular where the Stanlow Oil Refinery now stands. In the 12th century, the River Mersey teemed with fish, and the land on the Liverpool side was particularly rich, fertile, and well-irrigated by fresh-water streams.
In 1264, the Lord of the Manor, Adam of Garston, whose seat was the now long-demolished Aigburth Hall, gave permission for the monks to farm the district. And so, to provision their religious communities and to generate income, the monks grew cereals and other crops in the Garston and Aigburth areas. They also bred pigs and built mills and granaries here. There were a number of watermills, which were fed by a stream that has its source in Allerton. This stream still runs to the river under modern Garston, through a culvert that was specially constructed in the 19th century, as the village expanded and began to become industrialised.
For many years during the Middle Ages the Cistercians held extensive fisheries in Garston, specialising in flat fish and shrimps, which were sold in nearby Liverpool Town and in the surrounding villages.
To get across from one side of the river to the other, the monks had to sail or row across the often turbulent waters of the Mersey. However, local legends say that the Stanlawe monks excavated a tunnel under the river, connecting their holdings at Garston and Speke to Bebington on the Wirral. These tales may indeed have some basis in fact as The Wirral, just like Liverpool, is riddled with underground passageways and caves, many of which are natural, but many more are man-made.
The only surviving evidence that the monks were once in South Liverpool is Stanlawe Grange. This stands at No. 2 Aigburth Hall Drive, in Grassendale, and was built around 1290, as a large, cruck-frame barn for the storage of livestock and produce; and with accommodation for 3 or 4 monks. Later becoming a farmhouse, the building was eventually and sympathetically restored and, for many years, it has been a private house. Even so, the ‘Grange’ has been continuously occupied since its construction, and it is the oldest structure within the Liverpool City boundary.
The Medieval community of Garston was large enough to warrant its own church, and this stood on the site of the present church of St. Michael, located in Banks road. The present building replaced an 18th century church, and was erected in 1875; with the tower, its battlements, four pinnacles, and clock, being added in 1898. However, The first mention of a Church in Garston is in 1235 – originally dedicated to St. Winifred, but the list of Vicars in the present Church records ‘Henry’ as Vicar, in 1225. This has given rise to speculation that there may have been a Church on the site even earlier than this.
As with many of the rural villages that once surrounded the old Town of Liverpool, the pastoral life of the original Garston community changed with the coming of the Industrial Revolution: in this case, with the building, in the late 18th century, of a Salt Works and Salt Dock. Then, in 1853 and to compete with the Mersey Docks at Liverpool, The London & North Western Railway Company constructed Garston Dock. From here, coal and timber from all over Lancashire was shipped to Ireland, and also was the main port for the importation of bananas into Britain. At the same time, ranks of streets of terraced houses were constructed in ‘Garston-Under-The-Bridge’, to accommodate the hundreds of dock and manufacturing workers who now crowded into the district.
Local people were not only employed on the Docks and Warehouses the railway yards, but also in a new window-frame factory; at the Hamilton Iron Works; in a copper works; a button making mill; a bobbin factory; and also in the Garston Gas Works and at the Garston Tanning Company. In fact, tanning had been going on for centuries at Garston, since the monks built the first tanning mill on the shores of the river here.
The mid-19th century was also the time of the great Irish Potato Famine, when hundreds of thousands of desperate people fled their homeland to seek a new life in Britain, and beyond in the ‘New World’. Many of these people settled in and around Garston where there was then plenty of work.
Garston was incorporated into Liverpool in 1902, and a decade later the village was connected to the tramway system, which by now was criss-crossing the City. At its height, over 1000 people were employed at Garston Docks and on the miles of railways that serviced and connected them. Hundreds more not only worked in the local factories, but in the supply-chain industries and businesses that serviced them. Consequently, Victorian Garston bore no resemblance whatsoever to the rural idyll that the village had once been. Indeed, public health, hygiene, and living conditions were extremely poor, and the working environment was dangerous and hard. So much so, that the London & North Western Railway Company had to erect a mortuary in Garston, because the number of deaths on the docks and the railways was so high.
Nevertheless, the district continued to expand, and Garston Docks became an important handling area for so wide a range of commodities that, by 1937, there were 93 miles of railway sidings serving the docks, with 8 miles of these running alongside the quays. This meant that the population continued to rise too, but conditions did not improve and the overcrowded district of Garston soon became one of the poorest communities in Liverpool.
The post-war economic and industrial decline that afflicted all of Liverpool’s docklands, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, had a particularly catastrophic effect on the people of Garston: unemployment rocketed as local industries and shipping declined and, by the early 1970s, the button-mill and window-frame factories had both closed and the tannery had more than halved its production. The closure of other businesses soon followed and, as there were few alternative sources of employment, many local families have now been out of work and unskilled for decades. The result of this was a community suffering from appallingly decayed housing stock, significant social problems, and a high crime rate.
However, over the last couple of decades, the docks have been able to increase their role, and a new Container Base, which opened during the 1980s, has made Garston Docks one of the most effective earners in the current holdings of Associated British Ports, who own and operate Garston Dock and the Container Base. The Dock continues to handle bananas, coal, timber, bulk materials, and animal foodstuffs: totalling over 522,000 tonnes of freight each year. But, whilst some local people are still employed at the docks, these are now much less labour-intensive, and so general unemployment locally remains high.
For many years Garston remained a deprived community; low down on the regeneration priority-scale and with Garstonians feeling that they were often regarded as ‘outsiders’. But now a major redevelopment of the district is underway, with ‘Garston-Under-The-Bridge’ at its core. The modern Urban Village Hall and an impressive new primary and nursery school provide a range of facilities, services, and opportunities to local people who are, once again, a socially-thriving neighbourhood with a genuine sense of community.
There is a good working partnership between the community, the City Council, and the other agencies that are regenerating the area, and all the old, sub-standard housing stock is being swept away. These are being replaced by architect-designed houses, in pleasant refurbished streets, managed by the social landlord, South Liverpool Housing – being occupied by existing Garstonians as well as by new people who are now moving into the district. The site of the old railway sidings, derelict for decades, is now the magnificent ‘Cressington Heath’ residential development: providing more modern houses, in a part of Liverpool whose fortunes are much brighter now, than they have been for many years.
Speke: Ancient & Modern
The modern community of Speke, which lies at the southernmost end of the City boundary, was specially created to accommodate a population that was moved out to what was then a backwater of Liverpool, in the years before, during, and also immediately after World War Two. However, this district also has a magnificent ancient history, and is another of Liverpool’s ‘lost villages’.
The original name for the area was ‘Spic’, meaning bacon, as there were swine fields all over this area. Uctred originally owned Speke: he was a ‘Thane’, which was the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of a Knight, and he held six large manors throughout Lancashire in return for service to the Crown. From Uctred, the Manor of Speke passed to an ancestor of the Molyneux family. These were later to become the Earls of Sefton, living at Croxteth Hall in what is now the suburb of Liverpool known as West Derby. From the Molyneuxs, in the 13th century, the Manor passed to the wealthy and influential Norris family, who took up residence in Speke Hall; an outstanding, moated, half-timbered manor house that still stands in its own grounds, near the river.
It was Sir William Norris who, in 1467, began the Tudor rebuilding of Speke Hall, on the site of a considerably older mansion. He had made his fortune as a soldier, and had won much prize money and taken quantities of loot during his battles. He demolished much of the original sandstone manor house, which had certainly stood there since 1314, but left some of the original foundations below where the Great Hall now stands, to support his much grander Manor House. Also, the sandstone mullioned window in the kitchen is a remnant of the older house.
Speke Hall is timber-framed, and was constructed in four separate parts at different times, over more than a century. The rear of the present building, incorporating the Great Hall, was the first part to be erected. The two wings on either side of the central, cobbled courtyard were next and, finally, the front was added by a descendant of William Norris. In the courtyard grow two ancient Yew trees; male and female, which were named ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’. These are believed to have been personally planted by Sir William Norris, which would make them at least 500 years old. The house is surrounded on three sides by its moat, which is now drained, and the front entrance is approached across an attractive, ornate, Tudor, stone bridge. Above the entrance to the front of the house is an inscription in the lintel, which reads, ‘This worke 25 yds long was wholly built by Edw: N: Esq: ano 1589’.
Speke Hall is alleged to be haunted, and legends tell that the ghosts of a woman and her baby disturb the tranquility of Speke Hall: She was the wife of an early Norris who, when she found that her husband had lost the family fortune, threw her baby into the moat through the window of the Oak Bedroom, and then hanged herself in the Great Hall. Her dejected moans and the tragic crying of the infant are said to be heard throughout the corridors, and the Oak Bedroom is the location of a distinct cold spot. However, the legend does not tally with the known facts; in that the wife concerned apparently outlived her husband and the baby went on to inherit the title! Unless of course, these spectral manifestations are those of other poor souls entirely!Like the other major Liverpool families, the Norris dynasty had a significant impact on the economy and the social fabric of the local communities. They also played a significant part in political life of the Town of Liverpool, and beyond, some becoming Aldermen and Mayors. Once the Norris family had moved on, later owners of Speke Hall included Charles Beauclerk, and then Richard Watt (1726 – 1796), who was a wealthy merchant and slave owner, with rich sugar plantations in Jamaica.
Speke Hall is now a Grade 1 Listed Building, and is recognised as being one of the most significant houses of its type in the country. It is currently managed by the National Trust and is open to the public.
For centuries, Speke remained completely rural, and was no more than a number of isolated cottages and hamlets connected by tracks and pathways, surrounding Speke Hall and its extensive farmlands, woods and streams. Its population was never more than about 400 people, and this remained largely the case until it became an overspill, evacuation, and ‘factory-fodder’ community of the inter-war years.
To help cope with the rapidly expanding population of the City, Liverpool Corporation needed to build a new housing estate to re-house workers from other parts of Liverpool, and to serve the growing industrial estate at Speke. A purpose-built community was planned and, in 1929, Liverpool Corporation bought the land and work began in 1937. Pre-Fab accommodation was available on the outskirts of Speke to accommodate the community, and these were replaced, in 1936, by houses that were to be constructed using the ‘Garden City’ model.
Many people were also moved here during and after the Second World War; being bombed-out of their homes in the City-Centre. In fact, Liverpool was the most heavily bombed of all British cities outside London, especially during the May Blitz of 1941. Large numbers of houses were rapidly built and filled with families from all over Liverpool’s devastated streets.
Then, after the War and during the massive slum-clearances of the Inner-City of the 1960s, hundreds more families were shifted from their traditional communities to the modern streets of the Speke Housing Estate – and to other ‘overspill’ estates and ‘New Towns’ such as Kirkby and Skelmersdale. Although their new homes, for the most part, were much better than the ones that they had left behind, the neighbourhoods and extended families to which these people had originally belonged had been split up and scattered around the City. This caused the break-up of some families and much social disorientation – and none more so than in Speke.
What had been initially hailed as a ‘model town for the rest of the country’ rapidly degenerated. This was because the designers had failed to provide adequate social and community facilities, or appropriate services or public transport networks to meet the needs of such a large and growing population. The success of the new estate was also tied to the success of the industrial estate and, as businesses failed in the post-war slump, unemployment rose rapidly as did all the social problems that naturally accompany economic failure. The final major blow to the people of Speke was the closure, in the 1970s, of Dunlop’s, and of Standard Triumph, the car manufacturers.
Crime rates soared and Speke became renowned for pockets of violence, drug-taking, poverty, and squalor. Money was either unavailable or just not being spent on maintaining the infrastructure of the community, so housing stock and civic amenity degenerated further, thus adding to the environment of neglect and desperation.
Speke Regeneration
The first real sign of the transition from ruin into regeneration came when the Ford Motor Factory, at the Halewood site on Speke Boulevard, became Jaguar Cars. The factory where the Ford Anglia, Corsair, Cortina, Zodiac, Zephyr, and Escort cars were built had a troubled industrial-relations history throughout the 1960s and 1970s and, at times, the parent company nearly closed the site down.
However, it survived and, by 1993, in a joint venture, Jaguar Car body-panels were being produced at Speke. By 1998, the factory had been designated as the site for the production of the re-launched X-Type Jaguar and a transition began from ‘production-line values’ to a ‘total quality management’ system, producing vehicles of the highest quality in a completely redesigned and re-built factory and manufacturing process. The last Ford car left the Halewood factory in 2000 and the site officially became Jaguar Cars. This was a real indicator that the re-birth of the industrial and commercial life of Speke and Garston was beginning.
And then, and together with the rest of Merseyside and Liverpool in particular, Speke was destined to receive major injections of funding from the European Union – throughout the latter half of the 1990s and the opening years of the new millennium. This money, and the agencies established to spend it – which were the Speke-Garston Development Corporation, South Liverpool Housing, and the Liverpool Land Development Company – have fuelled improvements in the housing stock and infrastructure, and the regeneration of Speke, Garston, and the surrounding districts.
Since 1996, Speke has benefited from a major public-sector-led regeneration programme to revitalise comprehensively the economy of the area. Following a successful ballot of Council tenants the first major stock transfer took place in the City. South Liverpool Housing took over the City Council owned housing stock, in the then Speke and St Mary’s Wards. These properties benefited from major investment, and a programme of internal repairs (central heating, bathrooms, kitchens, and double glazing) was completed within four years.
These improvements are now obvious as one drives through Garston Village, and along Speke Boulevard: past the Speke District Centre, Estuary Banks Commerce Park, the Crowne Plaza Hotel, and the Shopping Park, and on into Liverpool City: or, as they make their way to Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
New Mersey Shopping Park
Directly opposite the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Speke Boulevard – once the original terminal building for Britain’s first provincial airport – ‘Speke Airport’, stands the New Mersey Shopping Park. This original site, a rather dowdy, out-of-town shopping centre, was sold in 1997 to British Land, for £4m. After an investment by them of £40m, the site was sold in 2001, for £60m, and again, in 2003, this time for £160m. Following further significant investment and a complete redevelopment of the site, The New Mersey Shopping Park is considered to be one of the fastest growing and most financially successful retail parks in Britain.
There are plenty of places to eat here – of the fast-food variety however – and the range of shops is considerable. From the large furniture stores and computer retailers, and from book shops to sports shops, this is a large shopping site. Many popular high street stores have branches here too, including Boots, WH Smith, Comet, Argos, and a Marks & Spencer Food Store.
That people are returning to Speke to spend their money is a remarkable turn of events, as is the large number of local jobs that have been generated on this site, and on the surrounding commercial and industrial estates and parks, and which will increase as these continue to develop.
Speke and Garston Business and Enterprise Parks
The entire Speke/Garston/Halewood area is now one of the key economic growth areas of Liverpool, and this is clear from the remarkable land reclamations and commercial developments being created in the area: driven forward by both the public and private sectors. These include Speke District centre, Estuary Commerce Park, Liverpool International Business Park, Dakota Business Park, the Venture Point Industrial Estate, and Speke Boulevard Industry Park.
Redeveloped from large areas of disused airport runway and maintenance sites, and from arid, brownfield, ex-industrial areas, the zone between Speke Boulevard and River, and from Garston to Liverpool John Lennon Airport, is undergoing massive improvement and redesign. New manufacturing, warehousing, processing, commercial, and office accommodation has been created, served by the latest technology and an efficient local road network.
Beautifully landscaped with trees and shrubs, and criss-crossed with waterways and reed beds that provide home to fish and waterfowl, these developments are now home to such organisations as The National Blood Service, DHL, The Riverside Group, Classic Couverture, and the National Bio-Manufacturing Centre, as well as other major companies. Indeed, Speke is now home to the largest concentration of bio-manufacturing facilities in Europe.
In fact, Speke Boulevard – connecting Liverpool City to the South, via Runcorn and Widnes, has been re-named as The International Gateway, because this is now the principal southern transport artery into the City, from the M57 and M56 motorways. This will also be a principal route to the new River Mersey Crossing – the proposed Mersey Gateway Road Bridge.
Driving along this smart and impressive dual carriageway, one passes between the ten vanes of a powerful piece of colossal artwork. Named ‘The Mersey Wave’, this comprises two sets of five, erect, wave-shaped fins, standing on either side of the roadway and fanning out like pointed fingers. This dominating sculpture was erected in 2003, at a cost of £700,000, and each aluminum ‘hand’ measures 236ft in length, with each fin reaching a height of 98ft.
The Wave towers over the dual carriageway, and the fins, which are illuminated at night by internal lighting, create a spectacular portal to the International Gateway, and are a symbol of the optimism and commitment to the future that so characterise modern Liverpool, and especially modern Garston and Speke.
Written by popular local historian Ken Pye, who is the Senior Programme Director for the international educational organisation, Common Purpose. © Ken Pye February 2009
Ken Pye has written one of the best comprehensive books on Liverpool’s history called “Discover Liverpool” that includes his excellent Discover Liverpool DVD. Available via this link
The standalone DVD. Available via this link
