Liverpool Castle 2.0

Now, you would think Liverpool Castle is geographically and historically situated within the wonderful city that shares its name, like Lancaster Castle in Lancaster or Chester Castle in Chester, but no.

Liverpool’s castle no longer exists. It did have a castle up until 1726, when its stone was repurposed for building the docks.

Prior to its demise, Liverpool’s Castle had quite an interesting history. Built in the 1230s by the 4th Earl of Derby, William De Ferrers. Ferrers’ son, Robert, had a thing for rebelling against King Henry III and as consequence Liverpool Castle was forfeited. By 1315 it was in the hands of Robert de Holland, when it saw its first (documented) military action. It was attacked as part of a wider rebellion by a guy called Adam Banastre. Despite being strengthened by constable Sir Richard Molyneux in the 1440s, a century later it was roofless and ruinous.

In the Civil War it switched from royalist to parliamentarian, and then back to royalist but finally surrendering to the parliamentarians. The castle’s extinction came in 1726, and a church was constructed on the site, only to be replaced by another church, and then eventually in 1902 a monument to Queen Victoria – which is where we are at today.

Liverpool Castle 2.0

The Liverpool Castle I want to talk about is actually in Lancashire, on the banks of Rivington Reservoir.

It is not well-known, and information is very sparse. In all honesty I didn’t know it existed until relatively recently, and I’m from the Northwest!

‘Rivvy’ (as the locals call Rivington!) is extremely popular – and near impossible to get a parking spot on the weekend! It is mostly associated with the enormous TV mast situated on Winter Hill that can be seen for miles and miles around the Northwest – which is an exhausting climb!

Having quite the history itself, Rivington was inhabited as far back as the Neolithic or Bronze age (based on a cup and ring mark). Passing from the pre-1066 Rivington family, to the Pilkington’s of Pilkington, a Norman family who continued to be the predominate landowners of the area until the 17th century it passed into relatives’ hands after a Robert Pilkington died without a direct male heir. Rivington Hall, the manor house of the estate, was purchased by a John Andrews in 1729, who torn down the medieval building and rebuilt it. His daughter’s family remained at the hall until 1910.

William Hesketh-Lever, 1st Viscount Lever, born in 1851 and died in 1925, is the owner I am most interested in.

Son of a Bolton Grocer, William had a talent for advertising and contributed substantially to the expanding family business Lever and Co. By 1884 his business interest had turned to soap. Capitalising on the Trademark Registration Act of 1875, William’s ‘Sunlight’ brand was so incredibly successful that by 1887 (3 years into business) the production needed to be moved to an 11 acre site on the Wirral – now known as Port Sunlight.

Alongside, the Sunlight Yearbook (a ‘useful information’ book in which the 1898 copy featured a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!), William adopted further advertising practices, such as coupons. And by 1900, manufactories were being set up all across the world, including the US, Germany, and even Australia.

A Castle of Commerce

Liverpool Castle was, therefore, a castle of commerce, which began to be built in 1912.

After a few damaging business years, William’s construction of a ruined castle (alongside the Italian terrace gardens that ornate the Rivington landscape) provided some desired escapism.

Aside from this castle being a replica of the medieval castle in the city of Liverpool, questions remain unanswered. Why Liverpool Castle? In fact, what did a soap manufacturing businessman want with a castle anyway – and a replica one at that? Educated guesses can be made.

The replication of Liverpool’s medieval castle does make (a bit of) sense. William had a lot of ties to the city, his soap manufactory was across the water on the Wirral, where he also had a home and ran several unsuccessful political campaigns, and he had donated considerably to the university.

One question that fascinates me is was it an archaeological experiment on a huge scale?

On my first walk around the castle, I was struck by a dead-end passage that only had a small arrow slit at the end – to my surprise this passage can be seen on the plan of Liverpool Castle (as pointed out by the red arrow). In fact the structure, when compared to this plan of the medieval fortress, is on the whole remarkably accurate.

William’s antiquarian interest (aside from the evidence left by this castle) remains a mystery to me. Many castle-building businessmen I have come across are concerned primarily with building themselves a power symbol residence, externally medieval, internally modern. This was not the case at Liverpool Castle for multiple reasons. Why live in a replica? Other castles being built at the same time – Julius Drewe’s Castle Drogo for instance – featured wide staircases and large rooms, not spiralling steep steps and awkward pokey towers. However, he did need a house at Rivington. In 1913, suffragette Edith Rigby had torched ‘the Bungalow,’ situated within the Terrace Gardens, but as it was rebuilt in 1914 it is evident the castle was not going to become a residence.

Leaving a legacy seems to have been important to William. Alongside his development of Port Sunlight on the Wirral, he did much for the wider Bolton area. He invested and was involved at the nearby high school. During his lifetime he donated land for Leverhulme Park, and he restored Hall I’ th’ Wood, the home of Spinning Mule inventor Samuel Crompton, opening it as a public museum. Crucially, 364 acres of Rivington was publicly accessible, known as Lever Park.

Sadly, it is not the most pleasant castle to visit.

Located in lovely countryside with fantastic views, the castle is neglected - the walls are graffitied, dead-end passages are NASTY, and there is smashed glass bottles and crushed beer cans littered about the grounds. 24 hour access is going to be detrimental to this ruin. Fixing a metal gate at the entrance could help to resolve this issue, as other entry points, such as low walls, would be more challenging to access and entail more personal risk.

Liverpool Castle could be a brilliant place to visit and its free - including parking!

Recent work has been undertaken to clean and clear the terraced gardens, and hopefully this will be extended to the castle – yet for some reason the ruin doesn’t seem to be under the same jurisdiction.

In general, Rivington is steep, cobbled and has steps. The castle, however, on the banks of the reservoir, can be reached by a flat, short, walk. And putting history to the side, by improving the (often boggy) pathways the castle would be a more attractive and more easily accessible place for all visitors.

Liverpool Castle has an interesting history that needs to be further uncovered – a replica castle is certainly something I have never come across on quite the same scale as this one. And alongside its ties to the Liverpudlian medieval and industrial heritage, it forms a really really important part of the legacy left by successful Bolton-bred businessman, William Hesketh-Lever, who shaped the landscape of the town and its countryside, arguably, for the better.

A note on sources: Most of the information I got was from Wikipedia pages on Liverpool Castle, Rivington, The Manor of Rivington, William Hesketh-Lloyd. Sadly, there is little information about the castle on Rivington-based websites.

Photos are my own, aside from:

1888 Survey Map - Historic Wales. RCAHMW.

Liverpool Castle Plan - 'A plan of Liverpool Castle made by 19th century historian Edward Cox.' Liverpool Castle. Wikipedia.