I have no idea is anyone actually reads my 'news' page, but I flatter myself that you might be interested!

July 2006
The month is young but the updates and new additions are flying in now. The updates are on-going, of course.
You will also find that the directories section has a lot of new files added. Work on these continues as the bright weather favours evening photography, after work!  A lot has also been added to the earlier history thanks to a great deal of input from Philip Mayer. Marky, Ken and others have been sending new pictures as well as some fascinating snippets. There is even a new church, well a mission, but where does the number of additions stop?  I do thank everyone who takes such an interest in the site. I am continuing to work back through old emails and hope to return the contact of everyone who has been in touch, it's just a slow process.

June 2006
Many of the old files have been expanded and corrected since some of the original information, taken at face value, has not proven to always be accurate. With help from my team of 'proof readers' and fellow enthusiasts, keeping me on my toes (thank you especially Paul, Ken and Philip) I do feel that the site is now starting to take shape. There is a new suite of pages on the Lodge Lane Roperies, a great deal more on the Dingle Estates (with more still to follow) and the churches section has had a few new additions, just when I thought that there could be no more to find. I have also recently added a lot of information on St Peter's in Church Street as it seemed such a shame to waste good materials by not using them. The problem is that having burst out of toxteth, where does one stop?.

I have also been working behind the scenes, adding to the maps section, mostly to fill-in the present rectangle. Having started this, I realise that a few extra maps will enable me to include a lot of new material which I already have. If you check out the maps you will see that they  now extend to include some of the city centre.

Finally, it seems that even the BBC are recognising that Aigburth Road is in Toxteth ! (thanks to Paul Young for this and thanks to the beeb for getting it right). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4979980.stm   'Police investigate city shooting. Detectives investigating a shooting in Liverpool say it was lucky no one was seriously injured or killed. Two men on a motorbike opened fire at a black Ford Galaxy people carrier near the Shell garage on Aigburth Road, Toxteth, on Friday evening'.

January 2006

I have had lots of help over the holidays (thanks yet again Ken!) and this has mean that a lot of new material is now online for you to see, perhaps still a bit rough around the edges (corrections gladly accepted) but you will find an extensive re-write of the Dingle Estate is now on-line, there is also a new suite of file on the Mersey Shore available. Can I ask again if anyone has any pictures or information relating to the Dingle Estate.

The polishing of the map section continues and they are looking better (I think) now that they have been changed to .gifs from .jpgs. I have also corrected one major omission, which was the shorefields area. On the 1905-1908 map series this was undeveloped, so many streets, built after this, were missing. There is now a new map and the streets are included within the street finder (which has also had a couple of tweaks, amazing that I can still find one or two streets that I read right past!).

I have a lot of new postcards to add after recent purchases and these will be online as fast as I can deal with them.

Finally - All good wishes for 2006.

Nov-Dec 2005

Several people have been in touch and kindly sent me information, memories or photographs, a couple do not wish any credit at all, but you know who you are and thank you, very much. Ken Roberts has been very helpful and generous in sharing his work photographing the Lodge Lane area and many scenes now lost - thanks Ken. James Hutchinson is also gratefully acknowledged with a couple of superb Park Road shots. Whilst offering thanks, can I say that whilst many folks may feel uneasy about it, I do always appreciate and check any corrections which get sent to me.

Two new branches of the family have been in touch with me, one on the Edwards side where it is lovely to be in contact with more of the descendants of Robert Edwards and one on the Taylor side, from Australia, where the brothers, sister and father of my great grandfather emigrated in the 1850s, looking for gold. It seems to have been an epic journey, some 14 weeks to get there (around the Cape in those days) with over 20 deaths as well as four births on the voyage. An amazing trip anyway bur more so when you realise that one brother later came back to fight in the Crimean War. Like the Monster Horsfall Gun from the Mersey Forge, he was just too late. He then returned to Australia. It seems that the family later came to the UK yet again for a visit many years later. A diary of the voyage and visit, written by one of the children is still in the family in Australia. It asppears also, that as late as 1905, my 64 year old, 4-times-married, great-grandfather went to Australia to visit his relatives there, leaving behind his 24 year old wife and my grandfather, who would be 2-3 years old.  Next time you complain about a 24 hour flight, think of how it was 150 years ago!

As I write this, yet another kind person has been in touch with a photograph, so again thanks (to Marie) and I will now get to work expand the site, as I gather that this is what folks want. I will try and open the new bits in time for Christmas.

Sept-Oct 2005
I use the above catch-all heading as I spent a lot of time embroilled in the site or in work. It was however a significant time. My email programme, which I use both for work and toxteth.net decided it would corrupt the databases. The result is that all of my email was lost. Although a recovery has been possible, it has meant sifting, one by one through upwards of 12,000 emails (yes you read that correctly). Each has to be checked or read, if only quickly, before being disposed of or filed again. It has been slow and it is ongoing. I have tried to keep up with recent or very simple mail, whilst attacking the backlog. If you have emailed and not yet had a reply then I apologise, but this is why. It is not lack of interest on my part.

August 2005
Holidays and work meant that there was little progress on the site until the very end of the month. A church, several pubs and a raft of new directory entries have been added. I have more directories to add yet but the work is time consuming and photographing pages needs a dry day at the weekend with good light!

July 2005

The site has been added to quite a lot since I last wrote anything here. The directory entries are now fuller and being added to as fast as I can.  Smithdown Road has been added to 'places' and it was a big job with over 20 linked files and places of interest, only a fraction is covered however. One revelation was the fact that so little of Smithdown Road was built up and developed until the very end of the Victorian era. Prior to this it seems to have been little more than a park boundary and a country lane.

Many people have been very kind and I am always grateful for any materials, especially pictures that anyone is willing to share. I have had a whole load of information and photographs sent to me. I am slowly adding this to the site.  I have also had some emailed corrections. I am sure that no-one ever likes sending these, but I would always rather be told and get things right.  All that I have received are being incorporated or commented on.  I have also been ravaging ebay to add even more photographs, albeit at a price.

The indexed street finder  has been updated after I found a whole band of maps which had not been included in the index, so for the third time this year I am under the impression that it is complete.

April 2005
I have now added an indexed street finder linked directly to the maps, so that you should be able to find the street where your ancestors lived without having to search every 100 or so maps.  It's been a while coming but I think it is useful.

Pubs: There are a few more added after someone asked me for more on Lodge Lane.

Churches : Again a few more churches are also now written up, and I think that the listing for the churches is now more or less completed, so you should be able to find your relatives' church, even if you cannot yet always read about it.

Streams :have now been added.  This has been fun and although not fully written, most of the computer work and the leg work has been done.  It just remains to write it all up. A rare contoured map of Liverpool on of many kindly sent as scans by Richard Hawes of the Lancashire Gallery has been a tremendous help in working out the courses of the streams and I hope to pass this information on fully once I have digested it all.

Maps : These have now reached 105 but the good news is that a couple more at the south easterly boundary will complete the set, allowing me to get on with linking in the features. The edges of the maps should all take you to the next map but checking every one of these is slow and so I have done what I can and would ask you to tell me if anything does not lead to the map that you think it should. Thanks.

Docks: I have  started work on the few docks which toxteth can lay claim to.  Herculaneum is in place but the full links are not as yet. A few of the links around the site are not all yet implemented, I am aware of a lot of these and am working on them so as yet there is no need to tell me, lets save that for when I think they are all correct!  Once again I can close with thanks to the numerous friends, new and old, who have all chipped in to make the site worth pursuing.

Maps: Currently I am updating the maps section.  It started as 30 tiles, and has just reached 72. I am working on expanding this to cover all of the Royal Park of Toxteth, but matching the maps edge to edge takes time and two a night is about all I can manage.  When completed this will be a lot bigger than I thought when I started. Work on the boundary information continues, and I have traced virtually all of this and walked the course of the Lower Brook - but you will have to take my word for that as I forgot the camera that day.