Thornton Manor, Birkenhead, England

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

Park and gardens designed by Thomas Hayton Mawson in collaboration with the industrialist and philanthropist William Hesketh Lever, later first Viscount Leverhulme.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Thornton Manor is set in gently rolling agricultural land about 1 kilometre north-west of Thornton Hough. The roughly 49 hectare site is bounded on the east side by Manor Road where the boundary is formed by a red sandstone wall. The north-eastern boundary is formed by a footpath which runs west from Manor Road before curving southwards where it cuts through the site. A brick wall runs for some 150 metres west from Manor Road where there is a boundary between the site and the gardens of Copley House. The rest of the boundary is delineated by fencing along the edges of wooded areas.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

C Holme, Gardens of England in Northern Counties (1911), plates 126-8

T H Mawson, The Art and Craft of Garden Making (1912), pp 49, 193, 239, 245, 247

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Cheshire (1971), pp 359-60

Thomas H Mawson, (University of Lancaster 1976), p 18

Country Life, 178 (5 September 1985), pp 602-5

Maps

Tithe map for Thornton Hough, 1847 (Cheshire Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: Cheshire sheet XXII, 1st edition surveyed 1871-2, published 1882; Cheshire sheet XXII NE, surveyed 1871-2, revised 1935
 

Description written: July 1997

Edited: March 1999