The Calderstones Story

Visit the Mansion House today and travel back in time in this dedicated exhibition that tells the story of life in Liverpool, beginning in the late Stone Age.

In the garden, get up close to the ancient Calder Stones that give the local area its name, inside their purpose-built home.

See how the imaginative exhibition rooms inside weave together the life of the Stones and the Mansion, alongside the development of storytelling and literature.

Trails & Tales: Explore Calderstones Park with our interactive map

Embark on a journey of discovery and literary delight with Trails & Tales, our new digital park map. Choose between our Literature Trail or Heritage Trail, or create your own adventure by combining the two!

The map can be accessed by using your smartphone or tablet to scan QR codes on wooden posts located around Calderstones Park, which will bring up audio clips, photographs and shared memories of the park from days gone by.

The Heritage Trail takes around two hours to complete and the shorter Literature Trail takes around 50 minutes to complete.

Both trails are completely free to use and have been designed to appeal to audiences of all ages.

You can also explore the park and enjoy this fascinating content from the comfort of your own home – just click the link below to have a go!

Calderstones Park and its links to slavery

The history of Liverpool is inseparable from the transatlantic slave trade. Between 1695 and 1807, 5,300 voyages left the port of Liverpool to participate in the trade, funded by the city’s merchants and ship owners. The profits they made were used to build many of the city’s historic mansions and public buildings. This has led many to wonder if the Mansion House at Calderstones Park has a link to the transatlantic slave trade.

As the current custodians of the Mansion House in Calderstones Park, Liverpool, we believe we have an important role in trying to help people understand the story of the Mansion and in sharing as much about its past as we can find out. By working with the historian, Laurence Westgaph, we have begun the process of researching the links that the building and the surrounding park have to slavery. Although there are still many unknowns, to help answer some of these questions, we’ve set out what we do and what we don’t know here.