LORD DERBY SELLS A TOWN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 86, 10 January 1928, Page 8

LORD DERBY SELLS A TOWN

£1,750,000 DEAL GROUND RENTS OF 22,000 HOUSES Recently a large part of the City of Liverpool and other property in Bootle and the townships of Kirkdale and Walton were sold by the Earl of Derby at a price of approximately £1,750,000. The.property, according to the “Westminster Gazette/’ consists of the freehold ground rents on 22,000 houses, hut Lord Derby retains the manorial rights and gifts of living. The buyer is nt.:,:.. i.' ra:ii a well-known London financier and one of the directors of Beecham Estates and Pills, Ltd. He has figured in a number of transactions involving large Sums. His present deal is one of the largest single purchases of real estate in recent years. Lord Derby at one time owned nearly 70,000 acres’ principally in Lancashire, but he made no secret of his desire to reduce his holdings owing to the burden of taxation on real estate. Not long ago he hinted publicly that his Lancashire seat at Knowsley, where many members of the Royal Family have stayed, come tinder the hammer. Changes at Knowsley would come, he said, though not, perhaps, in his lifetime. On other occasions he has pointed out that frequently parts of an estate had to be sold in order to pay heavy death duties. He has now disposed of practically all his land in South-East Lancashire, but he is still a large owner of property in the Preston district.

Offered to Liverpool for £1,000,000. Lord Derby owned almost the whole of Bootle excepting the land occupied by the docks. It was acquired by his ancestors more than 200 years ago before the town had developed. He offered this Bootle property, which was on a 'J99 years’ lease, to ’the Liverpool Corporation two years ago for £1,000,000, but when it was shown that a Parliamentary Order would be necessary before the corporation could buy, Lord Derby allowed the negotiations to fall through rather than endure the accompanying publicity. In 1923 Lord Derby sold the greater part of Whitefield, and in the following year the Colne Co-operative Society

bought for £40,000 the whole of his interests in Colne. Then, followed in 1925 the sale of the whole town of Bury and other property in Radcliffe, Whitefield, Manchester, and Salford. The area of this estate was 5000 acres, and the purchase price was stated by Lord Derby ito be “much less than £1,000,000.”' In all his land deals his practice has been to maintain the manorial rights in order that, as far as possible, the ties which' have endured for centuries between the house of Stanley and Lancashire should not be severed. Gifts of Land to Stanleys. It was after the Battle of Bosworth ill 1485—in which Richard 111 was defeated and killed—that the Stanleys received most of their extensive lands. Lord Stanley, who bore the mace at the coronation of Richard 111,, and who had been Constable of England, deserted Richard at the Bosworth battle, and as a reward for this abstention Henry VII made, him an earl and gave him the lands of Lancashire families who had been on the losing'side. Afterwards the Stanleys ruled as little kings, and it is recorded that in Queen Elizabeth’s day there were 220 servants at Knowsley, which was styled the “Northern Court.’’ Big Deals Recalled. The largest estate deal in recent years jvas probably the sale of Lord Howard de Walden in 1925 of 40 acres of land between Oxford Street and Euston RoaJ for £3,000,000. In 1914 he sold 62 acres near Regent’s Park for £500,000. ( Another famous deal was the purchase of the Covent Garden estate by the late Sir Joseph Beecham from the Duke of Bedford for £2,500,000. The Foundling Hospital site, disposed of a few months ago, brought in £1,650,000. Devonshire House and grounds, sold in 1919, realised more than £1,000,000.