A walk around Falkner Square in Liverpool is always interesting. The buildings are quite impressive although not quite as grand as the houses in the nearby Georgian Quarter, now much utilised for film locations, although Falkner Square itself made a film appearance in the 1971 film Gumshoe with Albert Finney.

What’s attractive about it is that it has its own central park and resembles the sort of square you would find in Bloomsbury. I was always told, that in days gone by, only the people who lived in the Square had a key to the park, although the City Council now claims it as ‘one of the earliest public open spaces in the city’. I suspect it wasn’t open to the public in its earliest days.

Falkner Square is said to be named after Edward Falkner, an ex-soldier and former High Sheriff of Lancashire, who mustered a force of 1,000 men to defend Liverpool in 1797 when fears of a French invasion were at their highest. He was a successful merchant, involved inevitably in the slave trade, but who died in 1825, so he can’t have been directly involved in the development of the Square.

Joseph Sharples’ Pevsner Architectural Guides Liverpool says ‘The central garden is shown planted on a map of 1831, but the stuccoed houses did not begin to appear until the mid 1840s.’ The only architect he mentions is William Culshaw who designed number 29 in 1845 along with many Liverpool buildings.

One relatively new feature is the Memorial to Black Merchant Seamen who served in the Second World War. This was unveiled in 1993 on the 50^th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic and contains the words “They Held Their Course” Respect Due. The bronze plaque, which, shockingly, has endured some vandalism but is now restored, is attached to a large decorated piece of sandstone. This came from the old Liverpool Sailors’ Home, which was once a very prominent landmark in Canning Place near the city centre. Now only the ornate gates survive and can still be seen at the entrance to Liverpool 1.