Toxteth District

**Jericho** · 03-05-2007

[QUOTE=taffy;43592]

Originally Posted by Jericho

One of the main errors that some historians make is where they over-extrapolate from a source. So a sign/map/church board with the term Toxteth Park on it is heralded as prooving that such a place meaningfully existed or even continues to exist.

People on this thread have drawn attention to how churches have used the term Toxteth Park to describe where they are situated but this is far from universal practice. For example, St Michaels (CofE) half way between Dingle Lane and Jericho Lane doesn't use this term nor does St Charles (RC) just over half way between Dingle Lane and Aigburth Vale.QUOTE]

From Diocese of Liverpool web site

http://www.liverpool.anglican.org/pa...ishparisht.htm

Toxteth Park Christ Church
Linnet Lane, Liverpool
Parish No 616

Toxteth Park St Agnes & St Pancras
Buckingham Avenue, Liverpool
Parish No 617

Toxteth Park St Michael In The Hamlet With St Andrew
St Michael In The Hamlet, Liverpool
Parish No 618

St Andrew closed in the 1970s I believe. If you go into St Michael's Church, you'll find a large banner which proudly states " St Andrews Toxteth" I have a number of bits of modern literature from St Michael's in the Hamlet Church which clearly state they believe they are in Toxteth Park, not least a parish map from about 2005.

I don't don't the locals don't believe they live in Toxteth, they wrongly think they are in Aigburth. However wishing and reality are not the same.

So the modern CofE uses the term Toxteth Park to denote a particular area. Early in the last century someone using contemporary records produced this list:

http://www.liverpool-genealogy.org.u...n/churches.htm

No mention of Toxteth Park in that one! How does your explanation account for St Charles' church on Aigburth Road lacking any affiliation with Toxteth Park? When St Michaels church was built, this area was not part of Liverpool at all. St Michaels in the Hamlet saw itself as precisely that, a hamlet. No mention of Toxteth Park. Locals can say that they live in St Michaels in the Hamlet. There is a sign to it from Aigburth Road and it has its own train station (St Michaels). Not a sign to Toxteth Park to be seen anywhere!

People from outside of L17 seem to think that people who live between Dingle Lane / Aigburth vale say that they live in Aigburth out of some kind of snobbery. This is not correct. Local custom which in my mind is every bit as valid as Church custom informs locals that this is Aigburth. The area as a whole knocks Aigburth proper for six in terms of the quality of its architecture, urban environment, life-style choices, restaurants etc. - so to all intents and purposes real class is to be found north of the vale and not south of it!

I don't care if some Toxteth fanatics see all this area as Toxteth Park. If it makes them happy, good luck to them. Anyone who knows this area or anyone who lives in it knows that it's a special area whatever it's called. No one outside of toxteth.net devotees calls this area Toxteth Park and Toxteth.net isn't exactly the most accurate of sites. If I live to be a hundred years or more I don't think I would ever meet anyone from Alwyn Street, Ivanhoe Road or Fulwood Road who claimed that they live in Toxteth Park. There's nothing wrong with Toxteth Park. (Parks and Heaths are sprouting up all over the place in south Liverpool at the moment). It just doesn't seem meaningful to me to use a term to describe an area that no one who lived in that area would actually use.

PhilipG · 03-05-2007

Toxteth Park was such a large area it's been subdivided.
Mainly into postal districts in the 20th Century.
It's history.

Accept the fact, and live with it.

Marie.
Liverpool is no more unsafe than a lot of places, and certainly safer than Manchester, and you deserved a less rude answer.

**marky** · 03-07-2007

I ignore Postcodes when looking for boundaries, as they're open to abuse or simple errors. There must be hundreds of wrongly placed street signs around Liverpool.

As for Toxteth Park Church Parish boundaries...these have been used as recently as the 1901 census to mark out areas on the census forms (at least on the ones I've seen for the area North of Dingle lane). I get the idea that Church of England and not Catholic Parish boundaries were used for 1901 census.

More recently, new neighbourhood areas have been set up, so now Toxteth (contained within Riverside...a boring name which I'll never use) no longer has any of the parks located within it. Toxteth has now been lumped together with "Waterfront" and Everton. What it loses in parks it gains by at least having St. Georges Hall within the new area. 'Aigburth' now has the 'three parks'...so say the Council.

I'll stick with the earlier boundaries and ignore any invented by people in offices who have no idea of history or common sense. Names such as South Central, Waterfront and Riverside (and Merseyside for that matter) give a clue to how much thought goes into new names for areas...i.e. not a lot.

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

Problems arise because fired by enthusiasm people over-interpret from a map or a signpost or an attempt at creating a name for an area that might have had historical currency at one point but never subsequenly took off when reused. Canning is an example of a genuine historical area that fell out of common usage and is now reframed as the 'Georgian Quarter'. Parliamentary or local electoral boundaries also come and go. 'Ropewalks' provides an example of how an historical term can be redeployed to define an area that never used this term to define itself until recently (largely because it wasn't particularly residential).

My favourite is Toxteth Park. Historically it existed as the name for an area outside Liverpool in which hardly anyone lived. As the city expanded into this area, my guess is that a name was needed to attach to it. Maybe Toxteth Park was chosen. It reaks of late Victorian/Edwardian faux gentility. Anyway, it didn't stick.

Obviously there will always be pedants who will insist that this area is Toxteth Park or Toxteth. They can set their stall out and people can judge them by their wares. My purpose in going on about this matter is to address people from outside the city or people within the city who don't know this part of south Liverpool very well, and ensure that they have the information they need to make their own minds up.

Let me summarise my position.

(1) Historically, a largish portion of what is now south Liverpool was occupied by what was once called Toxteth Park. The exact boundaries of this park are open to dispute, as indeed is the extent to which it was used as a royal hunting park.

(2) Not many people lived there until the end of the 19th century.

(3) Sefton Park opened in 1872 (or thereabouts) and the area between the park and the river was subsequently over the following decades developed for housing.

(4) As the entire area was incorporated into the city at the end of the 19th Century my guess is that this is where historically the confusion about what to call this area arose. Prior to incorporation into Liverpool it was indeed part of the Township of Toxteth Park. Toxteth Park was not part of Liverpool at this time and not many people lived in the area south of modern day Dingle Lane. With the incorporation of Toxteth Park into Liverpool this whole area became part of Liverpool and as it was laid out for residential development it was as part of the city of Liverpool not as Toxteth Park. The people who bought the properties south of Dingle Lane were buying propery in Liverpool 17. (Historically most people have owned their own property in this area). My guess is that one or two developers tried to sell this place as 'Toxteth Park' and the CofE but not the RC church used the term Toxteth Park at parochial level.

(5) The use of the term 'Toxteth Park' to refer to this area amongst its inhabitants has never had any popular currency at all. If you doubt this ask people in Lark Lane (assuming you can find anyone from Lark Lane in the lane - try the Parkfield Inn), or Aigburth Road south of Aigburth Vale where they live. No one will say Toxteth Park or Toxteth. Most will just say L17, some will say Aigburth.

(6) Liverpool has a long and proud tradition of using a postcode to denote location, L8, L17, L18 etc.

(7) The correct term for the area between Dingle Lane and Aigburth Vale is L17.

PhilipG · 03-09-2007

That's just your opinion, Jericho, and you're entitled to it.
I've said much earlier on in this thread that there are so many different types of boundaries that it is hard to define them.
But over, and above all that, the boundaries of Toxteth Park were clearly known 800 years ago, and it is not toxteth.net that invented them.

You say Toxteth Park became part of Liverpool.

Liverpool was part of Lancashire.
Lancashire was part of England.
England was part of..............
Need I go on?

**marky** · 03-09-2007

The Southern boundary of Toxteth Park is not in dispute...around Jericho Lane.
It surprises me how important postcodes seem to be, when they are invented simply as a means to run a business. I prefer names over numbers.
The name 'Toxteth Park' has been used long after its' incorporation into the City of Liverpool...maps, official documents.
I do understand that people South of Dingle Lane to Aigburth Vale would refer to the area as Aigburth, it's just that I'm not convinced this is entirely accurate.

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

What is not at issue is the fact that no one who lives in L17 in 2007 considers themselves to be living in a place called Toxteth Park! If we assume that terms exist to aid communication, how the hell does the term Toxteth Park aid communication about contemporary L17? I don't have any problem whatsoever about Toxteth Park being used to describe a general area that once existed. I enjoy being amused by people who describe Lark Lane as part of Toxteth or Toxteth Park in 2007. It makes my day. I love a good laugh.

The area behind the retaining the wall between Dingle Lane and Jericho Lane used to be universally called the cazzy. The only bit left is the path between St Michael's station and Riverside Drive (the Garden Festival site is bang in the middle of the cazzy!) When all the 'luxury', 'executive', 'desirable', 'prestige' etc etc homes are built and this area has a new name, I'm goint to create a website called cazzy.net. It's purpose will be to inform people who call their areas things like Southwood Park or Jericho Heath that they are all in reality part of the cazzy and in denial.

Cazzy rules OK?

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

Originally Posted by marky

The Southern boundary of Toxteth Park is not in dispute...around Jericho Lane.
It surprises me how important postcodes seem to be, when they are invented simply as a means to run a business. I prefer names over numbers.
The name 'Toxteth Park' has been used long after its' incorporation into the City of Liverpool...maps, official documents.
I do understand that people South of Dingle Lane to Aigburth Vale would refer to the area as Aigburth, it's just that I'm not convinced this is entirely accurate.

You mean the historical boundaries. Can you direct me towards a modern map that uses these terms for the locations you describe - one from the last 50 years would suffice. You may well prefer names over numbers. Most people in L8 and L17 prefer numbers over names.

PhilipG · 03-09-2007

Originally Posted by marky

The Southern boundary of Toxteth Park is not in dispute...around Jericho Lane.
It surprises me how important postcodes seem to be, when they are invented simply as a means to run a business. I prefer names over numbers.
The name 'Toxteth Park' has been used long after its' incorporation into the City of Liverpool...maps, official documents.
I do understand that people South of Dingle Lane to Aigburth Vale would refer to the area as Aigburth, it's just that I'm not convinced this is entirely accurate.

The Northern Boundary isn't in dispute either.
Parliament Street and Upper Parliament Street are named after an Act of Parliament which confirmed the boundary of Toxteth Park and Liverpool.
And, of course, St James Church was given special permission to be built in Toxteth Park.

For somebody to bring the name "Cazzy" into the discussion is rather silly, as that is just a nickname for the Cast Iron Shore, which certainly didn't have any clearly defined boundaries.
In fact, nobody is sure if it takes its name from St Michaels (Iron) Church, or the Mersey Forge.

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

Originally Posted by PhilipG

The Northern Boundary isn't in dispute either.
Parliament Street and Upper Parliament Street are named after an Act of Parliament which confirmed the boundary of Toxteth Park and Liverpool.
And, of course, St James Church was given special permission to be built in Toxteth Park.

For somebody to bring the name "Cazzy" into the discussion is rather silly, as that is just a nickname for the Cast Iron Shore, which certainly didn't have any clearly defined boundaries.
In fact, nobody is sure if it takes its name from St Michaels (Iron) Church, or the Mersey Forge.

You clearly don't get irony! Can you point me towards any maps published in the last 50 years that use the term Toxteth Park to describe the area you describe as Toxteth Park?

Thanks in anticipation

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

Perhaps I should clarify the term 'any' given your tendency to be a bit over literal.

Any as in the equivalent to the modern A-Z. Material from toxteth.net and a list of churches within the parish of Toxteth Park won't suffice.

Ta

PhilipG · 03-09-2007

There's none so blind as those that won't see.

Why restrict yourself to 50 years?
Why not 50 days?

I'm not going to keep repeating myself to someone who won't accept facts.

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

Originally Posted by PhilipG

There's none so blind as those that won't see.

Why restrict yourself to 50 years?
Why not 50 days?

I'm not going to keep repeating myself to someone who won't accept facts.

Do you really have a contemporary map of Liverpool that shows a place called Toxteth Park exisiting between Parliament Street and Jericho Lane. I would love to see it

Or are you just being silly? Maybe you're being ironic? I'm just asking for evidence. That's all.

**Jericho** · 03-09-2007

My point being that if you can't evidence your claim then the reality is that you are just talking about an area that exisited historically but no longer exists in a meaningful way. History is full of them.

Not exactly rocket science.