According to
Stephen Harding's
Viking Mersey, Thingwall Hall is on the site of a
Thing which, like
Thingwall on the Wirral and the
Tynwald on the Isle of Man (and
Dingwall and
Tingwall in Scotland), was one of the local Scandinavian parliaments in the Norse-occupied areas of the British Isles. A Liverpool
merchant Thomas Crowther lived there in 1824 and at this time the hall was known as Summerhill. Thomas Case of the prominent Case family and also
Mayor of Liverpool in 1817 lived there for a time. In 1845 the property was purchased from the
executors of Thomas Case by Samuel Thompson. It eventually descended through the important Thompson family, to his son and grandson, Samuel Henry Thompson and
Henry Yates Thompson before being sold by Annie Thompson to Sir David Radcliffe at the beginning of 1899, who in turn sold the property to a land company in 1903. The mansion house and of the surrounding estate were subsequently purchased by a
Belgian religious institute, the
Brothers of Charity and it became known as
St. Edward's Home, a
poor law school and eventually a
residential care home and
sheltered accommodation for vulnerable adults. Beyond the hall there is a small "village" of housing for the residents, along with a garden centre which provides some employment and activity for many of them. In most recent years the land was purchased by a housing developer with the intent to construct up to 550 homes upon the site. ==See also==