Victor and Paula Ashley have called Park Lodge home for more than two decades. The Grade-II listed property sits between Sefton Park and Princes Park in the south of the city. Its history stretches back centuries, with royal connections that surprised even Victor's family.
Victor, 80, told the ECHO that his family could not understand how he had been able to afford the stunning property. He first discovered the house years before buying it.
A childhood memory becomes a home
Victor recalled walking past the house as a child. He said: "When I was a kid, I used to walk past here. And they had all the fencing. And I used to look through, we all used to look through, because it has such a big garden. I used to say, 'Who's the rich person living in that house? Oh, look at them, look at those rich people in there!' Little did I realise I was going to buy it off the people that were living here."
When he eventually bought the house, people could hardly believe he was in a position to do so. He said: "Because I only come from Jolliffe Street in Toxteth, they were quite surprised that a young lad from there was in a position to live in a house like this, because they have these preconceived ideas of what category you fall in, I fell outside that category."
Saving strategy and a £400,000 purchase
Victor explained that the purchase was part of a careful strategy. Working at Ford and making £19 a week, Victor and Paula, who had been working as a social worker, started saving. With spare time away from his day job, they saved enough to buy their first house. They then used bank loans against their equity to keep buying more properties until they reached a portfolio of 22.
By 2003, Park Lodge had come on the market. They decided to sell off up to 14 of the houses in their portfolio to meet the £400,000 asking price.
Unique features and hidden rooms
While sitting in the dining room, Victor pointed to the wooden covered walls. He said: "Behind those walls there is just mud and wattling, there's no bricks whatsoever. We tried to get a builder to come along and make a window in a room there, but as he went through, he said there's no format, there's no structure, it's just mud, wattle, horsehair and cowhide."
The property also includes a hidden door that Victor and Paula had not been told about before buying the house. He said: "There's a door there, we didn't know that it leads up to another big room at the back. When we came, there was a table tennis table here and there was a snooker table there. The previous owners used to use it."
Victor and Paula have added their own taste over the years, with antique paintings, ornaments and statues from their travels abroad placed across the house.
Royal history and future custodians
Park Lodge is believed to have been constructed in 1207 when it was King John's Hunting Lodge. King John was the youngest son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the brother of King Richard the Lionheart. He is best known for signing the Magna Carta in 1215, a year before his death.
Victor said the property has also been owned by The Earl of Sefton and members of the Rathbone family. He added: "We've been here since 2003, and we aim to stay here. It's a great house, and all we're doing is maintaining it, that's all we do. The way my wife and I look at it, we're only custodians of this place, that's all we are. When we finish, our sons, Luke and Greg will take over, and what they do with it, I don't know."
