HALEWOOD ROAD (continued)

KINGSLEY: - The Drs. Shatwell have very kindly made us free of their deeds, and of their house from cellar to attics. (Listed.) The house we see is a mid 19th century brick villa in the Georgian tradition, 2 storeys and attics, with a stone plinth and moulded stone cornice and the flues are gathered into two chimney stacks thus leaving space for attic windows at a high level in the gables. The front elevation is in the local brick, with its typically pale headers, in Flemish Bond, with 6 panelled front door and round fanlight with its original glazing bars but the doorcasing with fluted pilasters is, on close inspection, a replacement under the open pediment. There are two 12 paned sash windows on the ground floor and three above with stone sills and lintels. To the north the end elevation, built in English Bond, has no features especially worth noting except perhaps the lowest course where stone is showing. On the south end however, as well as the disruption of the header courses owing to the presence of flues, it s clear that something more than the insertion of a lintel for the picture window has happened to the brickwork and Mrs Shatwell recalls an unexplained building projecting from the house here, the rough stone base is also visible. The rear elevation has been much altered.

The deeds show that James Kelshaw (c.1797-1861) corn and flour dealer of Gateacre - an Ormskirk family in the early C17, bought the house in 1843, promptly made his will, and lived in the house. By 1845 he owned Hollymead & Elmsvale and also the fields on the corner of Belle Vale Road/Grange Lane with Thornside and the Grange Lane Stores, now demolished. (There was also at this time a John Kelshaw - a brother ? - a saddler who owned Paradise Cottages and Gateacre House).

When James Kelshaw died in 1861 his daughter Sarah (c.1830-1901) and her husband Eli Conway (died 1908) corn merchant inherited Kingsley under the trust set up by James Kelshaw's will, and the house remained in the ownership of Conway descendants until 1921.

continued . . .