CHAP.

I.

A.D. 1704.

Perseverance, however, finally succeeded, and in 1704 a grant was made by the Crown of the site of the castle to the Corporation for fifty years, at a ground rent of £6; 13: 4 per annum. The municipal troubles were not yet over, for claims were set up by Lord Molyneux which led to litigation; but in Molyneux's 1707 the cause was won by the town. Steps were then taken towards laying out the site for building.

Grant from the Crown.

Lord

claims.

A. D. 1702.

Rector's houses.

In 1708, January 6th, appears the following entry in the Corporation records: "Ordered, the mayor, with the assistance of some of the council, not less than four, have power to pull down and make improvements about the castle."

After all this energy and success, difficulties still remained to be overcome; the old castle died hard. The nature of the obstruction is alluded to in Johnson's letter of December 22, 1702, that Mr. Clayton "was managing it for the Church." The facts, so far as can now be ascertained, were these. After Liverpool was made a separate parish, and two rectors appointed under the Act of 1699, residences appear to have been provided for them within the precincts of the castle walls. After the A.D. 1704. grant of a lease from the Crown to the Corporation in 1704, the parish and clergy were not disposed to budge without a consideration, claiming a vested interest in the tenements they had been occupying. Matters went on for several years in this uncertain condition before any decisive step could be taken; but AD. 1715. on May 20, 1715, a vestry meeting was held to receive a deputation from the Corporation, when it was mutually agreed that the parish should withdraw their claims on consideration of the Corporation contributing £300 towards building houses for the rectors, and that the Corporation should join with the rest of the parishioners to tax themselves for raising a further sum for the same purpose. This was afterwards modified, as will be seen hereafter. The two bodies thus reconciled united in Act of an application to Parliament for an Act (1 George I. c. 21), Parliament. by which the site of the castle was vested in the mayor and

Disputes settled.

Corporation for ever, and authority was given to build a new church on a portion of the site, and to make a new market adjoining.

In January 1715, at a meeting of the council, the mayor and aldermen were directed to view the site of the castle, and consider the most proper place for building the new church. On their report the tenants in the round tower of the castle were ordered to have notice given them to remove, it being

СНАР.

I.

1721.

Square.

A. D. 1725.

thought proper to build the church there. In 1721 there is the flowing entry in the accounts: "Paid the Parish for rent for sundry houses in the castle for the poor, £23: 10s." The parish, it seems, kept possession pending the fulfilment of the agreement by the Corporation. It would appear that even in Derby 1725 some remains of the castle buildings still existed. At a special council, held April 15, it is recorded that an "estimate St. George's at sectional plans of a new church, to be erected in the late Church. castle upon the ground where the old large square stone tower and the at me buildings adjoining the same to the northward now stand, being now laid before this council by Mr. Thomas Steers and Mr James Shaw," etc., directions be given to proceed with the works. This is the last we hear of the castle, and thus the old A.D. 1726. fortress, after having weathered the storms for five hundred years, was finally "improved" off the face of the earth.

The materials, especially the stone, were used in building Es at the top of Moore Street, which then ran through to Castle Street. These houses were taken down when the street was widened in 1786.

The demolition of the old castle was the sign and figure of much that was passing away along with it.

The old order changeth, yielding place to new." With Changes. the fall of the Stuart dynasty the maxims of feudality, arbitrary government and civil strife, typified by the castle and the tower, came to an end in England. There was much that was picturesque and graceful in the forms of mediæval life; but when its essence had departed, the residuum became foul and noxious, and could no longer be endured.

The commercial spirit succeeded, with its enterprise and industry, which were destined to raise our country to an unprecedented height of prosperity, disfigured, no doubt, by many ugly features, such as selfishness, greed, and envy; but on the whole the balance of good greatly preponderated. Nowhere was the change more manifest or fraught with greater promise than in Liverpool, which now for the first time started boldly in the race of commercial enterprise.

The Corporation had now got the site of the castle, and pro- Appropriaceeded to appropriate it. The inhabitants were at this time ton of site much inconvenienced for want of a proper market-place, the propensity for building narrow streets and utilising every availale inch of land having left them scarcely any open space for the purpose. The corn-market was held at the High Cross,

CHAP.

1.

A D. 1700.

Marketplace.

under the arches of the old Town-hall, and in the street in front, the grain being "pitched" in bulk. The butchers had shambles opening from High Street, occupying part of the present Exchange area. The pedlars and the potato-market occupied the carrefour called the White Cross, between High Street and Oldhall Street.

In 1700, the site about the castle was ordered by the council to be levelled and made fit for a market-place, and the castle ditch to be filled up.

The scheme for a new market on the site of the castle was one main object of the application for the grant. Johnson, writing within two months of his first return to Parliament (March 17, 1702), thus alludes to it: "I would propose, and I New market. hope it will looke faire, that the butchers be at the new markett,

A. D. 1702.

Building on site.

Market.

Leasing

the butter, cheese, and poultry about the Change, as the butchers were . . . and if you'll consider we draw most of the people of the town farthest to markett, I pray use your interest to quiet people's minds. I have some complaints; I am afraid the old temper continues."

Even before the castle was demolished, building had commenced along the western margin of the castle precincts. This street was called Preeson's Row, from Alderman Thomas Preeson, who built the first houses. Preeson himself lived on the opposite side, fronting the castle fosse. On a stone in front of the house was the inscription frequently found on houses of the seventeenth century —"God's providence hath been mine inheritance. Anno 1660." A William Preeson was mayor in 1696.

In the Chorley Survey (1688) one stone house and garden is entered in Preeson's Row as belonging to the Moores.

Before the buildings of the castle were entirely removed, about 1721, a small square was formed for the new market; and out of gratitude for the service rendered by the Earl of Derby in obtaining the grant, it was called "Derby Square,"

In 1721 Henry Trafford the Corporation Treasurer gives credit for rents in Derby Square £63: 2:4}.

In 1725-6 the Corporation sold on lease some of the property, the rents received having dropped to £11. In two years the fines for leasing amounted to £460:19:3. In 1729 lands forming part of the castle site were leased for fines amounting to £214:19:3. The leases were for three lives and 21 years. St. George's Church was commenced in 1726, and consecrated in

CHAP.

I.

1734. St. George's

1734. The architect was Mr. Thomas Steers, the engineer of the Old Dock. The original design, though not free from defecta, was bold, simple, and effective. The body of the church was proportioned in one order of Doric columns and pilasters, Church. with an attic above, and a single range of semicircular-headed windows. The tower rose boldly and simply from the ground, with two diminishing stages above, crowned with a well-proport. ned spire.

The carved wood-work inside was executed partly by R. hard Prescott, who also did the work at St. Peters, and partly by one Johnson, quondam clerk of Bloomsbury Chapel.

By a singular oversight the church was placed on the solid settlement rek and the tower on the old castle ditch. The consequence of building. was a settlement in the building, producing a huge rent from the summit downwards. The spire was taken down in 1809, and subsequently (1819-25) the exterior of the church with the tower and spire were rebuilt in a style which, "not to put too fie a pint on it," may certainly be pronounced no improvement on the original design.

When the church was rebuilt it was determined to insert an east window in stained glass. The commission for the design was given to W. Hilton, R.A., which resulted in the picture of the Painting by Crucifixion, now in the Public Museum, from which the window Hilton. was executed. The picture is without controversy one of the finest e positions of the English school-free from affectation, simple, 1dle, and grand. The council paid the artist £1000—a conslerable sum, but not a third of the present value of the picture. It is more than questionable whether a municipal council, el ted by popular suffrage, would have ventured on such an expenditure for a similar purpose. It is not often we have to re ord munificent encouragement of the arts in the proceedings of town councils. Let this stand to their credit.

The original level of the castle site was considerably higher Alteration than the present surface, within a foot or two of the level of the of levels. terraces, forming the churchyard. From Derby Square to Preeson's Row, the communication was by a long flight of stairs called “Kenyon's steps."

No sooner was the church erected than it began to be closely surrounded by a dense mass of houses, hemming it in on the north, south, and west, and leaving a very small area for the market square on the east. At the south end of Castle Street, just beyond the church, the road was contracted by a projecting

CHAP.
I.

Temple Bar.

Castle
Ditch.

A. D. 1756.

Removal of buildings.

Arcades.

Stocks market.

A. D. 1763.

Tarlton's obelisk.

A.D. 1786.
Improve-

ments.

Bullbaiting

Farlest mention.

mass of buildings into a footway, which went by the name of Temple Bar. From the east side of Castle Street eastward to the old fosse the site was covered with buildings, the road outside the fosse being called the Potato-Market, subsequently Castle Ditch.

The shortsightedness and folly of this arrangement began very soon to show itself, and in 1756 the area on the south side and part of that on the west side of the church were cleared of buildings and the surface lowered. To accommodate the altered level, arcades were formed under the churchyard, crowned with a balustrade, and finished by an octagonal-domed building at each end. The arcades were used for market purposes, and one of the octagons for a lock-up.

The space thus obtained was devoted to an extension of the market, and called the "Stocks Market," from a pillory and stocks which stood on the site. These were removed in 1763 by Mr. John Tarlton, mayor, who erected in their stead a lofty obelisk, covering a cistern and pump. This useful structure long perpetuated the memory of its founder by its appellation, "Tarlton's Obelisk." At what precise period it was removed I have not been able to ascertain.

In this condition matters remained until 1786, when in connection with other improvements hereafter to be mentioned, the whole area was cleared, and the church left isolated as it now stands.

It is handed down traditionally that, during a great part of the eighteenth century, the Stocks Market was frequently used for the popular amusement of bull-baiting, the elevated churchyard and the windows of the surrounding houses affording commanding positions for viewing the so-called "sport."

I have to apologise to the courteous reader for lingering so long about the neighbourhood of the old castle. I can only plead the interest I have always felt in the early history of the locality. The site of the castle was the central point, the orphatos, of old Liverpool, and its story exhibits in a strong light how "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."

Let us now take a survey of Castle Street proper. The burgage tenures referred to in the original charter of King John were probably for the most part situate in Castle Street, but we have no record of them. The earliest mention of the 1 See Plate XVIII. vol. i. of Herdman's Ancient Liverpool, in which the whole arrangement is shown.