Woolfall Heath Avenue

Image: © Sue Adair Taken: 8 Aug 2012

In 1932 Liverpool City Council purchased a large area of the Earl of Derby's Knowsley estate. Throughout the 1930s, the city built four large housing estates in the north-west of Huyton-with-Roby, one of which was Woolfall Heath a Liverpool ‘overspill’ housing estate. However, the first residents in this estate in May 1940 were "prisoners of war" as Liverpool was targeted as the temporary destination for many aliens and internees during WWII for its convenience as an embarkation port to the Isle of Man, Canada, and Australia. One of the largest internment camps in the UK, a 12 foot high barbed wire fence was erected around the estate and armed soldiers patrolled the perimeter. Most of the internees were intellectual left-wing anti-fascist refugees who had fled Nazi persecution. In fact, some internees in the Huyton camp had fought for Britain in the First World War and some even had children serving in the British forces. By 1942, most internees had been released.

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