Hard Lane - This Old House?

[HORT 2,848]

If you go along Hard Lane from the Top Shops towards Abbey Road, there is an old house opposite Cowley playing Fields.

 

Its here

 

 

 

 

If you look above the upper windows on that last photo above, there is a stone with a bird and a latin phrase.

The bird has a branch in its mouth.

 

Its here

 

 

 

Does anyone know what this house is or was and what is the stone with the bird and phrase all about?

The phrase says:

 

VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO

 

Anyone any ideas?

Edited October 25, 2016 by HORT

[Dave 7,099]

It allegedly means "I can scarcely call these things our own".

[Alan 3,213]

I think we had a thread on that house a few years ago. HORT should know the area better than most

 

My memory of that house and the sort of woodland that lay behind it is from the 1950s when my wife lived in Rivington Avenue with some of her family in Princess Avenue so it's a bit sketchy.

 

I always imagined that there used to be a sort of country estate between Hard Lane and Bishop Road before the council estate was built, maybe Victoria Park was part of it, and that that house was a lodge house to the estate.

 

Memories fade but wasn't there a public right of way that led from that house, past a very old school building on the right (Windlehall.or Hurst School?) and that came out in Princess Avenue? Again memory plays tricks, but I'm pretty sure that the area bordered by that path, Hard Lane, Gamble Avenue and Princess Avenue was unkempt woodland in the 1950s

Edited October 26, 2016 by Alan

[FRANK 597]

Could there be a Liverpool connection? The bird depicted looks like a 'Liver Bird'.

[Dave 7,099]

Yeah, there was the Gamble estate. I think the house was back in those woods near the quarry and some of their land was used for Victoria Park - the rest being Ansdell's house and gardens.

Windlehurst - Gamble residence


I wonder if the house in the OP was a lodge or a servant's house for the big place?

Check the 1937 map where it shows Windlehurst Mansion Sch. (was it used as a school once?) and it looks as though the other one is Windleshaw House.

[Ned 498]

It was the Gate House to the Gamble estate there was one in Bishop Rd also, Bishop Rd was the boundary between the Gamble and the Ansdel estates

[Tony J 491]

Going by 1939 register the next entry for Hard Lane after Windlehurst Hall is Windlehurst Lodge then Windlehurst Cottage, the one before is Stable Cottage Windlehurst so I would say Lodge is the most likely.

[HORT 2,848]

I lived in Rivington Ave also Alan, but I never had any history of the House.

[Tony J 491]

David Gamble (who commissioned the Gamble House in Pasadena) also put this motto on his family 'crest.' You can see it with just a little googling around.
I'd assumed that he just invented the whole thing after he decided that he was a gentleman, but perhaps there was some ancestral link after all.

 

From Yahoo answers

[Alan 3,213]

It was the Gate House to the Gamble estate there was one in Bishop Rd also, Bishop Rd was the boundary between the Gamble and the Ansdel estates

Thanks Ted, I'd forgotten that you'd lived in that area too

[Ned 498]

The Stable block was on Bishop Rd on the corner of Bishop Rd and ( iam having a senior moment I can not think of the name ) it was the next Ave up from Windlehurst Ave. the lady who lived there was a teacher at Cowley School

[Alan 3,213]

Yes, it was Pine Avenue Ted. Christine will be back shortly so I'll ask her who the teacher was. Fascinating to think that the whole Council house development was once part of the Gamble estate.

 

Anyone know how Mr Gamble made his fortune? presumably it wasn't on the gee-gees.

[HORT 2,848]

I think it was the corner of Windlehurst Avenue and Bishop Road.

A large black stone building on its own.

[Dave 7,099]

 

 

Anyone know how Mr Gamble made his fortune?

 

Some links to info on this post.

[Alan 3,213]

 

 

the lady who lived there was a teacher at Cowley School

Just asked wife. There were quite a few who lodged there. Dorothy Jones, Polly Playfoot and "German" Jones were three that came to mind

[Tony J 491]

On very old maps before Bishop Road existed it was Cowley Hill Lane all the way to City Road.

[Dave 7,099]

Gamble must have owned some land to the south side of Bishop Road - as well as that within the boundary wall, because he did gift land towards the creation of Cowley Hill Park. I haven't only read about that in one place, I'm sure, but it does say so in paragraph 5 of this article on the Mansion House website. He also opened the park and renamed it in the year of Queen Victoria's jubilee.

 

Also mentioned in the council's 'Victoria Park, St Helens Merseyside, Historic Assessment', by Barbara Moth, under the heading 'Development of the park' - http://old.sthelens.gov.uk/media/459990/vp_historic_assessment_doc1final.pdf

 

Also mentioned in the council's 1968 Centenary publication.

http://www.sthelens-connect.net/home/centenary

[Alan 3,213]

I'm so glad HORT started this post. That area between Hard Lane and Princess Avenue fascinates me. I can remember the quarry, the blue shed were the stone was milled into small pieces and the farmland with ponds on it that was where the Hard Lane housing estate is today - it was still being built in the early 1950s when I was at Cowley.

[Ned 498]

I remember her being on the large size maybe Christine mite put a name to her

[Alan 3,213]

The large lady was known as Miss "German" Jones, the German language teacher

[Ned 498]

That was her she was a language teacher

[HORT 2,848]

The house at the corner of Pine Avenue and Bishop Road was a residence for teachers at Cowley Girls. It was a large building with stables at the side (pine Ave)and a large lawn along Bishop Road. There were green railings along the lawn.

 

Next to the stables in Pine Avenue were 2 houses, the first one was home to a woman called Nellie Ryan.

 

This is a totally different building to the one I mentioned earlier at the junction of Bishop Road and Windlehurst Ave.

[singe 643]

And to think I grew up around this area and had no knowledge of any of this..

I used to do a paper round close to this area, totally oblivious to the history. I guess that's just the way it is when we are young.

[Phyll 2,759]

Could there be a Liverpool connection? The bird depicted looks like a 'Liver Bird'.

It's a stork.

 

"Blazon On A Mount Between Two Trefoils Slipped Vert, A Stork Arg., Holding In The Beak A Rose Gu., Stalked, Leaved, And Slipped Ppr."

 

http://www.myfamilysilver.com/pages/crestfinder-crest.aspx?id=148198&name=Gamble

[HORT 2,848]

Brilliant find Phyll