Nos 3 to  9 Belle Vale Road; The block 3 & 4 is about 26ft frontage x 24ft deep and is also about a foot less high than Nos 1 & 2, and the blocks 5-7 and 8 & 9 follow these smaller dimensions (and are also stepped down, block by block to follow the fall of Belle Vale Road away from Halewood Road). The general Georgian tradition is followed, though the front doors are not enriched with mouldings, but note the very large stones which form the door lintels in all these houses. Here we also become aware of ground floor shutters (those on No.4 are modern replacements and non-functioning) detectable both from the cleaner patches on either side of the windows, and fixing hinges (or their remains) and holding back catches, c.f. Rose Brow Cottages with similar traces, also 17 - 27 Abercromby Square. Considering the use of shutters we note that the fronts of Church Rd M.W., with their long front gardens are set over 40 ft back from the road, while 3-9 Belle Vale Rd. are less than 30 ft from the road and wonder whether defence against vandalism as a reason for needing shutters here before the Woolton police force was set up in about 1839. Also note the stone slabs forming front garden walls at either end of this group, as well as divisions between gardens, similar stone slabs were used to construct pig-styes in all (?) back gardens - the last one removed last year. All these cottages have cellars under the back room.

Turning to the dating of this group we have had sight of the deeds of No.8 only, and we extract from these a significant ? date - 27 October 1837 - a surrender by Joshua Lace to John Greenough. (Joshua Lace 1762-1841, attorney of Liverpool and founder of the Liverpool Law Society, was a landowner in L.W. by 1805 when about 5 acres were allotted to him under the Enclosure Act "in right of his Estate in L.W.". He lived at Throstles Nest, Belle Vale Rd, in his later years, was on the L.W. jurors list in 1824 and by 1835 his son Ambrose was building 'Beaconsfield' on the newly enclosed land).

We have records of ownership in 1845 when Nos 3 & 4 belonged to Mrs Mary Greenough (born at Hale c.1791) a widow and infant school mistress. Nos 5, 6 & 7 belonged to a Wm Berry, and the 1879 rates book still gives William Berry as the owner's name (are we right in identifying him as the journeyman miller, born c.1801 who lived in Allerton Rd M.W. in 1840 on the site to be later the Village Club ?). Nos 8 & 9 were owned by John Greenough (born in L.W. c.1815).

continued . . .