West Derby & Croxteth Park
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Issue 133 – July 2017
To celebrate we are (amongst other things) holding our inaugural Golf Day with Lee Park Golf Club in aid of Sunflowers charity (see back page for details)
IT’S OUR 11TH BIRTHDAY! Yes, 11 years old! Doesn’t time fly? As many of you know it started off as a “bright idea” when we were working together at the Liverpool Echo and came to fruition in July 2006 and we started by distributing 8,000 copies (now 15,000 copies) of the West Derby and Croxteth Park LINK. In 2007 we launched South Liverpool LINK (now 28,000 copies) and the Liverpool LINK now has a total monthly distribution of 43,000. We have firmly established ourselves as a favourite community paper and we remain a totally independent business. We are the first to
recognise that the success of The LINK is entirely down to you – our readers and our advertisers. So we would like to thank you all for your constant support and loyalty over the last 11 years. We thank you, our readers, for supporting our advertisers. We would also like to thank all our regular contributors who have helped us so much over the years with their great articles: Stephen Guy (whose wonderful local history articles continue to inform and entertain); Anton Valdemart for his Strange Tales; Jim Stanway (South Liverpool FC); Peter
Harrison (Alder FC); Mick Titherington (Stoneycroft FC); Paul Coshott (Fighting Fit); Chris Thomas (Liverpool Sefton Hockey Club); Jade Ainsworth (Life ‘n’ Style); all the other readers who kindly send in articles and, of course, Peter (my husband) who does all our competitions/quizzes and who writes and edits many of our articles for us. And where would we be without our designers and printers and of course our distribution team? Here’s to the next 11 years! Best wishes and many thanks to you all, Moira, Dawn, Carol and Colette
DOWN ON THE FARM
By Stephen Guy, West Derby Society
UP to about 50 years ago local urban farms and smallholdings provided produce for their communities as well as wider
markets. Housing developments to rehouse people from inner areas of Liverpool started in the 1920s and continued after the Second World War. Land became increasingly
sought-after in the suburbs, a process that continues today. Any property with adjacent land was targeted by developers, particularly at a time when local authorities built their own houses for rent. Sometimes residents were ousted and long-standing communities wiped off the map. One example was Mercer Place, a cluster of Georgian terraced cottages nestling in market gardens off Deysbrook Lane. In the early 1960s Liverpool Corporation issued compulsory purchase orders. It was claimed the houses were slums but in reality it was the land that was wanted. In 1963 a student compiled a fascinating illustrated study of the farms and smallholdings still operating in West Derby.
These included notably Croxteth Hall Home Farm and also such long-vanished working farmsteads as Rice Farm, Oak Farm, Mab Lane Farm, Beech Dairy Farm and nurseries in Almonds Green and eyfield ad Questionnaires completed by farmers and smallholders offer unique insights into a period of our semi-rural past coming to an end. Oak Farm, on Oak Lane, was part of the 7th Earl of Sefton’s estate. In November 1963 the 10-acre farm had been run by the same family for 45 years. Employing just two people, the farmer wrote: “Over the last 20 years we have lost 90 acres of land and have concentrated more on livestock in the yard, mainly pigs.” Continued on page 4
INSIDE LINK CHARITY GOLF DAY – PLEASE GET INVOLVED
See back page
WIN, WIN, WIN
Calderstones Beach 2017 – Four lucky winners can win 10 rides each – see What’s On page
One prize of four tickets for A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
– see What’s On page
One prize of four tickets for Alice in Wonderland At Storyhouse Open Air Theatre in Chester
– see What’s On page