Sefton Park, Liverpool, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

A public park designed in 1867 which was the first to introduce French influence to the design of parks through the designer Edouard André, who had worked with Jean-Charles-Adolphe Alphand on the design of major Parisian parks.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Sefton Park is situated about 4 kilometres south-east of Liverpool city centre, in rolling land which falls slightly to the south and west and is bisected by a valley running from north to south across the site. The area is generally residential. The 108 hectare park is enclosed by a system of curving roads laid out to form its boundaries. These are, in clockwise direction starting at the northern boundary: Croxteth Drive, Greenbank Drive, Mossley Hill Drive, and Aigburth Drive. The setting of the park is formed by an encircling belt of land which was divided into building plots for villas overlooking the park. The money raised from the sale of plots was used to help pay for the construction of the park. Not all of the plots were developed as planned and there are areas of later 20th-century building, but where villas were built and survive they form an important planned element to the setting of the park.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

The Gardener's Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no 30 (27 July 1872), pp 1004-5

C Holme, Gardens of England in the Northern Counties (1911), plate 112

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: South Lancashire (1969), pp 233-4

Landscape Design, no 139 (1982), pp 11-14

H Conway, People's Parks (1991), pp 96-103

Sefton Park, Liverpool: Restoration Master Plan, (Land Use Consultants (LUC) 1992)

Maps

The following items are reproduced in LUC 1992:
E André and L Hornblower, Prize Plan for the Sefton Park, 1867
Plan of Sefton Park by the Corporation Surveyor, 1882

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1850

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1889-90; 2nd edition published 1924

Archival items

Anon typescript historical summary and notes on various items within Sefton Park, 1988 (Liverpool City Planning Department)

Collection of early and mid-20th-century postcard views of the park (Liverpool City Planning Department)
 

Description written: February 1997

Amended: June 1998

Edited: March 1999