WELLINGTON ROAD
The Wellington Road Conservation Area was designated primarily to preserve the character of a line of Regency and early Victorian villas and their terraced gardens which run along the seaward side of the road, overlooking the promenade. The boundary of the Conservation Area has been drawn to include not only these villas but the late C19th residential development of Marine Park Mansions, the open area of Marine Park, opened in 1897 and the Kings Parade Gardens, once home to tennis courts and bowling greens but now used as an unusual Pitch and Putt course. Also within the Conservation Area, at the bottom of Atherton Street, on the King’s Parade, is the New Brighton Lifeboat-Station.
Until the C19th most of the area, now known as New Brighton, consisted of sand dunes, rock and heather. In 1830, James Atherton (1777 – 1838), a Liverpool merchant, purchased 127 acres of land with the intention of establishing a fashionable watering place. Wellington Road was the first part of that development to get under way. Atherton’s son in law, William Rowson, a Prescot solicitor, advertised for architects to design the villas in 1835 and by the autumn of that year the first property was complete. The remaining villas, which nearly all date from the mid-1830s, were built soon afterwards. (The Liscard Tithe map of 1841 shows 12 new properties)
The villas are unusual, with the part of the house facing the street being single storey and the seaward side two storeys, to take account of the slope of the land. They are highly decorative, exhibiting a variety of architectural detailing. Some are Classical or Italianate in influence, others Vernacular Revival or Gothick. Their features include gabled roofs, barge boarding, stuccoed elevations, decorated friezes, pointed arch windows and cast-iron railings, gates and balconies. One exception to the general use of stucco is the stone faced Redcliffe, No 34, designed in 1845 by the already famous Harvey Lonsdale Elmes (1814 – 1847). Elmes was the initial architect of St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, begun in 1842, and one of the major neo-classical monuments of Europe.
The opening of the Mersey railway tunnel in 1886 and of New Brighton station two years later, in 1888, gave an impetus to further development and it was as part of this period of growth that the four storey Marine Park Mansions were built.
Listed buildings within the Conservation Area include the following properties, with, in many instances, their railings and gate piers as well. One gateway, that belonging to Warwick Cottage, No 26, is not original but was moved from the pay office of the Guinea Gap Baths when the baths were modernised. It can be recognised by the turnstile supports on either side of the gate. To view a map of the Conservation Area click here.
Nos. 22, 24 • No. 26 • Nos.28 and 30 • Nos. 32 and 34 Redcliffe • Nos.36, 38 and 40 • Nos.42 and 42A • Nos.44 and 44A, 46
Nearby, but outside the Conservation Area and also listed are:
21 and 23 Montpellier Crescent • 33 Rowson Street • 16 and 18 St George’s Mount
Also of interest are Ewart Villas, Nos. 50, 52, 54 Wellington Road, one of which was the summer residence of William Rathbone, (1819 – 1902) in the 1860s. The nursing care given to Rathbone’s first wife, Lucretia who died in 1859, inspired Rathbone to establish a district nursing service in Liverpool.
Two large mansions have disappeared from Wellington Road. Ewart House, built for Joseph Christopher Ewart, (1800 – 1868) MP for Liverpool 1855-1865 and an ‘American, East India and general merchant’ was replaced by Portland Court, built 1938-39. The Cliff, just outside the Conservation Area, once the home of William Rowson, was replaced by two tower blocks in 1962. Prior to this it was acquired by Wallasey Corporation, who after 1934 offered it to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association for the training of their students. Staff and students lived there together until the outbreak of war when The Cliff was requisitioned for the use of an anti-aircraft battery. A ceramic plaque commemorates the link between the road and the Association.
