- Gateacre
infobox UK place
country = England
latitude= 53.3831
longitude= -2.861
official_name= Gateacre
population=
metropolitan_borough= City of Liverpool
metropolitan_county=Merseyside
region= North West England
constituency_westminster=
post_town= LIVERPOOL
postcode_area= L
postcode_district= L25
dial_code= 0151
os_grid_reference= SJ428877
map_type= MerseysideGateacre (Audio|En-uk-Gateacre.ogg|pronunciation) is an affluent area of
Liverpool ,Merseyside ,England . It is bordered byChildwall ,Woolton andBelle Vale and is a residential area of large detached and semi-detached housing.History
The name Gateacre (pronounced "gat-acca", not "gate-acre") is thought to derive from 'gata' - the way - to the 'acre field' of Much Woolton. An alternative explanation of the name may be from Anglo-Saxon "gāt-æcer" = "newly cultivated plot where goats are kept".
Gateacre was never a township in its own right. The village was bisected by the boundary between Much and Little Woolton: 'Much' being centred on Woolton village, and 'Little' being an almost entirely rural area which included
Netherley . The present-day Halewood Road and Grange Lane follow the line of an old packhorse trail, which led from theRiver Mersey at Hale to the settlement ofWest Derby before Liverpool even existed. The crossroads in Gateacre is shown on eighteenth-century maps, and the 'Bull' and 'Bear' would at that time have catered for travellers passing through the district.The oldest buildings surviving in the village are probably
Grange Lodge in Grange Lane (a house which retains some 17th century features), the Unitarian Chapel in Gateacre Brow (built in 1700 for an English Presbyterian congregation) and Paradise Row in Grange Lane (the original inhabitants of which, pre-1750, are thought to have been out-workers producing components for thePrescot watchmaking industry). Around this small cluster of buildings stretched farmland and heathland, which during the nineteenth century proved attractive to wealthy individuals seeking a rural retreat from their everyday business in Liverpool,Warrington orWidnes .Eighteenth century Gateacre was characterised by buildings and boundary walls of Woolton stone: the local red sandstone which was later used to build Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral. Many of these survive to the present day. In the late nineteenth century, however, a change in architectural fashion led to Gateacre village being associated with the 'black-and-white' or '
Mock Tudor ' style which makes it such a distinctive enclave today.Among the wealthy
Victorians who moved to Gateacre was Sir Andrew Barclay Walker, the Scottish-born brewer who was knighted in 1877 following his gift of theWalker Art Gallery to Liverpool. Walker settled in Gateacre in the late 1860s, having commissioned the local architectCornelius Sherlock to rebuild Gateacre Grange on Rose Brow. It was Sir Andrew Barclay Walker who, in 1887, gave the village green to the Little Woolton Local Board of Health (the local council of the day), to commemorateQueen Victoria 's golden jubilee. On it he placed a bronze bust of the Queen, sculpted by her nephew Count Gleichen.Gateacre railway station on the formerNorth Liverpool Extension Line served the area up until closure on 15 April 1972. [citeweb|url=http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/g/gateacre|title=Gateacre|work=Disused Stations|date=2007-03-19 |accessdate=2007-04-13 ]References
External links
* [http://liverpoolstreetgallery.com/thumbnails.php?album=28 Liverpool Street Gallery - Liverpool 25]
* [http://www.liverpool.ndo.co.uk/gatsoc/ The Gateacre Society]
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