A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



one from another, the grand staircase being at its 

 north-east angle. Sefton Hall, the old house of the 

 Molyneux family, was dismantled in 1720, and this 

 wing doubtless marks the date at which its abandon- 

 ment in favour of Croxteth was finally decided on. 

 Work had been going on at a somewhat earlier time, 

 as a date of 1693 and the initials of William Moly- 

 neux on a spout-head behind the tower on the west 

 front go to prove. The stables also had been re- 

 built before this time by Caryll Molyneux in 1678, 

 and were added to in 1706. 



A north wing was added about 1790, but has 

 recently (1902-4) been rebuilt to harmonize with the 

 west front, the old brewhouse and bakehouse, which 

 had been incorporated with the work of 1790, being 

 destroyed in the process. In 1874-7 an east front 

 was built and the south front lengthened to join it, 

 while the dining-room at the south end of the west 

 wing was lengthened southwards and the grand stair- 

 case renewed. 



The present house, therefore, is built round a quad- 

 rangle, and its greatest dimensions are 205 ft. by 135. 

 Its chief merit lies in the early eighteenth-century 

 work, the details of the panelling being very good, 

 but of the fittings of the old house little remains 

 except a small oak door, nail-studded like those at 

 Pool Hall (1576), Moor Hall (1566), and Hale Hall 

 (c. 1600), and looking as if it were not now in its 

 original position. Its Y~ sna P e d iron knocker is in a 



curious position near the upper hinge, and the door 

 may be part of a larger one cut down. 



New Hall, on the borders of Fazakerley and Walton, 

 became the property of the family of Molyneux of 

 Alt Grange about the end of the sixteenth century, 

 and early in the eighteenth seems to have become 

 their chief residence. 1 It is a 

 plain specimen of the H" sna P ei ^ 

 type, and bears the date 1660. 

 It passed, with Huyton, to the 

 Unsworths, and was by Thomas 

 Molyneux-Seel sold to Arthur 

 Hey wood, banker, of Liverpool.* 



The Norris family had an 

 estate here in the fourteenth 

 century, acquired by William, a 

 younger son of John le Norreys 

 of Speke.* It descended in the 

 fifteenth century to Thomas 



XT i J . . . second and third quarters 



Norris, whose daughter and a r rtt or on a f ess axure 

 heir Lettice married her dis- three mullets of the third. 

 tant cousin Thomas Norris of 



Speke, and so carried the estate back to the parent 

 stock. One of their grandsons, William Norris, 

 was settled here, his estate remaining with his 

 descendants to the end of the seventeenth century.* 

 The family remained constant to the Roman Church 

 and had to face loss and suffering in consequence, 

 especially during the Commonwealth ; 6 thus the 



NORRIS or WIST 

 DERBY. Quarterly ar- 

 gent and gules, in the 



nd and third quarte 



