Presenting
House & History
History
The Crawford Family
The House was once owned by the Crawford family of the Custard Cream fame.
An extract from Wikipedia
…………. In 1897, two younger brothers, Archibald Inglis Crawford and James Shields Russel Crawford, were sent to establish a subsidiary in Australia. They got as far as the major English port of Liverpool in England where they established a major new factory. This huge factory, the Fairfield Works, stands on Binns Road and was designed by their brother, the architect Alexander Hunter Crawford in 1895, taking two years to build. The Liverpool factory was highly mechanised, allowing creation of more elaborate biscuit designs, in particular the Custard cream which promptly became one of Britain’s most popular biscuits. The Fairfield factory made snack bars including Bandits, Penguin, and 54321 chocolate.
In 1927 Crawfords were one of the first factories to provide employees with their own social club and sports facilities: at Sandown Hall in nearby Wavertree.
If you are interested in the history of Fernlea House and it’s relationship to the Crawford Family then this Australian Archive website can give you more details.
Find out more about the History of the Custard Cream
In the First World War Crawford’s produced presentation maps for consumers of their biscuits. This map is from the National Library of Wales.
Alex Sing Esq.
It is believed that Alex Sing Esq owned the property prior to the Crawfords. The property was stated as “Fern Lea” but has since dropped the spacing to become Fernlea, all one word.
Although exact dates are not known, it was clearly from the 1870’s where Mr Sing started extensive alternations to the internal layout of the building, employing W Culshaw & Son, and A Culshaw, architects to draw up the plans.
Most notable on the plans below are the separate bedrooms for Mr and Mrs Sing, the Butlers Pantry, Coal Store and Cycle Room.
The drawings date from: 1879-97
Mossley Hill, Liverpool: drawings of Fernlea (house) for Alex Sing, esq, by W Culshaw & Son, and A Culshaw, architects, Liverpool.
Note the ashes store – these were removed and at the time were often used to fertise the soil.
Mossley Hill, Liverpool: drawings of Fernlea (house) for Alex Sing, esq, by W Culshaw & Son, and A Culshaw, architects, Liverpool.
Mossley Hill, Liverpool: drawings of Fernlea (house) for Alex Sing, esq, by W Culshaw & Son, and A Culshaw, architects, Liverpool.
