Toxteth

• Toxteth


  A settlement established by the Saxons, recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086 as one of just a handful of coastal villages along the banks of the Mersey
• King John took the area into his control in the early thirteenth century when it became part of a large royal hunting forest


  After the Norman Conquest
• The area's status changed and it began to be opened up for farming


  Towards the end of the sixteenth century
• Toxteth in the seventeenth century


  • Small-scale industry was a growing characteristic, making use of water power from the dammed stream
• As the changes associated with the Industrial Revolution gathered pace

  Liverpool began to emerge as a major port with many associated industries
• Toxteth in the Industrial Revolution period

  • It took on a more urban and industrial nature with activities such as several forges, a copper works established in 1772 and later a ceramics factory
  • Industries such as flour milling and brewing developed to serve the rapidly growing population
  • The river bank became lined with docks, ship-building yards and associated industries such as rope walks
  • This section of docks tended to specialise in the handling of timber, much of which was imported from Scandinavia
• Residential developments in Toxteth

  • Part of Toxteth was given over to an ambitious housing scheme with wide streets lined by large and substantial villas
  • It was an attractive greenfield site for property developers who built for the growing middle class who wanted to escape the congestion and declining environmental quality of the innermost suburbs to the north
  • Commuters journeyed daily into the city centre to work in the developing service sector as well as in managerial jobs in manufacturing
• However, the demands for space from industry and housing brought further change to Toxteth throughout the nineteenth century
• The areas behind the large villas had been used for very cheap and poorly constructed housing, much of it back-to-back and court dwellings
• Epidemics such as typhoid and cholera frequently erupted in the unhygienic and insanitary surroundings
• Terraced housing spread over much of the area to house the families of those employed in the docks and industries
• There was an exodus of middle-class residents as their disposable income increased and urban transport improved (trams and suburban railways), they relocated to greenfield sites on the edge of the built area
• Over a period of about 150 years, Toxteth had changed from a small rural community to an inner city suburb in a large metropolitan area
• Original rural features such as fields and hedgerows were replaced by the built environment with just the rise and fall of the ground evident in the streets
• Toxteth's growth had much to do with increasing connections both nationally and internationally as goods passing through the docks were traded all over the country and beyond the UK