Everton Park

Image: © Sue Adair Taken: 31 Oct 2005

Everton Village was, in the 18th century, a pastoral village, set upon Everton Brow, some distance from the increasingly prosperous Port of Liverpool. With unsurpassable views across the River Mersey to the Welsh hills and over the city to the as yet unspoilt rolling countryside, it must have been a desirable place to live. With the onset of the Great Irish Famine and the Industrial Revolution, immigrants from Ireland and Wales, as well as the impoverished victims of enclosures in rural England, poured into the city to attempt to make a living in the burgeoning factories serving the manufacturing industries. The demands of such a population upon the area changed the landscape dramatically. To accommodate this influx, densely packed rows of back to back houses were built on the hills surrounding the village. The village was quickly subsumed into the industrial conglomerate. With the arrival of the 60s came the demolition of terraced streets, which had become such a landmark, visible as they were from the river, to be replaced by high rise blocks of flats and the green and pleasant hills of Everton were just a distant curiosity to be wondered at in antiquarian prints and books. It took merely a decade or two to realise the disaster that was 'sixties built' high rise dwelling. The 1980s brought a return to a more sociable style of housing development and with this the creation of the open green space that became Everton Park.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0