The Gifting of
Bowring Park
Following the Open Spaces Act 1906, which gave councils the power to own and manage land for public benefit, Alderman William Benjamin Bowring expressed his intention to purchase Roby Hall Estate as a gift “for the use of the inhabitants of Liverpool for all time”.
The Gifting of the Roby Hall Estate (renamed Bowring Park) by Alderman Bowring was to celebrate that he and his father had been members of Liverpool Council for nearly half a century.
On Wednesday 12 June 1907, in an official ceremony held here on the terrace lawn, Roby Hall Estate was officially renamed Bowring Park and handed over to the Lord Mayor, Mr John Japp.
In his speech, Mr Japp announced that “It is the citizens not of today, nor of next year, but of many years to come who will enjoy these beautiful fields”.
You are at the former rear terrace of Roby Hall. Two vinery glasshouses would once have stood either side of you. A terrace lawn lies before you, with the Bowring Park Golf Course beyond, which would have once been the estate lands of Roby Hall.
See if you can spot the ha-ha wall that separates the terrace lawn from the land beyond! Ha-ha walls were typical of grand country estates and an important feature of the Georgian ‘English Landscape’ design of the time. The ha-ha prevented grazing animals from accessing the lawn and garden, while preserving the uninterrupted views.
The Liverpool Mercury described the vista in 1907 as “a fine view of the Childwall Vale, with the churches of Woolton, Gateacre and Childwall comparatively near, a grand panorama of the Cheshire Hills beyond, and a distant glimpse of the Upper Mersey.”
These views were altered forever in 1973 with the construction of the M62 motorway which cut through the centre of Bowring Park.
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