Royal Park Hotel, Toxteth

The Royal Park Hotel was a three-storey, handsome public house and hotel situated on the corner of Admiral Street and North Hill Street, Toxteth, Liverpool, England. It was built in the 1860s1 as a three-storey building possibly by the brewer Walkers of Warrington. A long bar ran the length of the pub curving at the end; two other rooms had no bar and were served by waiter service, which disappeared towards the end of the pub's life. The name of the pub probably refers to the fact that Toxteth was a Royal Park – although in the interwar years the name changed to the Admiral Hotel.2 In the 1871 England census, it is recorded as being at 2 Admiral Street, Toxteth Park and in Ordnance Survey maps of the period it is marked as a PH on the corner of Admiral Street and North Hill Street – with a Freemasons' hall adjacent to it at 80 North Hill Street. However, in some Censuses the hotel is recorded as being at 84 North Hill Street. A history of the Ancient Briton Lodge records that "some time prior to 1877 a hotel had been built on the corner of Admiral Street and North Hill Street called the Masonic Arms" – although no other record of that name has yet been found.