Little Crosby

Little Crosby is a small village in Merseyside, North West England. Despite being a suburb within 8 miles of Liverpool it has retained its rural character by, for example, opting not to have street lights.

As part of Lancashire the village was an urban district in its own right until annexed to the Great Crosby urban district in 1932. This urban district was combined with other districts to form the municipal borough of Crosby in 1937. This in turn was absorbed into the new Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in 1974.

The village is perhaps the oldest extant Catholic village in England, the squires being the notable recusant Blundell family. The village character has changed little from a 1600s description that "it had not a beggar, ..an alehouse ..[or] a Protestant in it..." In 2009 Protestants reside in the village as old values change - Protestant inhabitants however must be 'vetted' by the local Squire before occupation of one of the 50 or so dwellings. In 1986 a senior member of the hamlet was quoted in the Liverpool Echo as saying "Protestants are discouraged from settling in our village".

Notable attractions are:

• The Courtyard café
• Little Crosby museum, a museum housed in former farm buildings with exhibits focusing on village life and history. There are artefacts ranging from petrol pumps and bits of machinery to toys and magic lanterns as well as a number of displays of old farm tools.
• Crosby Hall Educational Trust (CHET) which runs courses and community programmes, such as riding for the disabled and art courses.
• The Well Barn Stableyard, an attractive courtyard which has various small shops and businesses

The village is dominated by the St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, inspired by Pugin. Opposite the church is St. Mary's Roman Catholic School, a single storey 1960s building. The first school for the village was established by the Squire, William Blundell, at Boundary Cottage in 1843, next to the brook that then ran between Great Crosby and Little Crosby. In 1859 the school moved to a new building next to the presbytery of the church, opposite the current site. The current school building replaced that in 1964. The school takes pupils from the village and neighbouring villages of Hightown and Ince Blundell.

External links

• Little Crosby in Bloom - The website of Little Crosby's villagers' entry in to North West in Bloom
• CHET - Crosby Hall Educational Trust
• MerseySights: Outlying areas - website with photos of the village
• St. Mary's, Little Crosby - website of the parish church, with history of the village
• Little Crosby Church: St. Mary's - Anna Tumilty's site on the church history and parish records of Little Crosby
• Township: Little Crosby - from A History of the County of Lancaster, Vol.3, published in 1907
• Crosby Records: A CHAPTER OF LANCASHIRE RECUSANCY - An 1887 monograph on the Blundells and Little Crosby