Scarisbrick Avenue

This street may be narrow, but it’s long been a key route to the Promenade and lined with cafes and shops selling holiday souvenirs and treats. It takes its name from the Scarisbrick family who owned much of Southport.

The creation of the avenue was proposed in the 1876 Southport Improvement Act and it was constructed over the next decade, opening up direct access from Eastbank Street to the Promenade. Previously the Hesketh Arms, one of Southport’s earliest hotels, blocked the route and there was just access to a group of small cottages hemmed in by sand behind Lord Street. The original building was replaced by a new Scarisbrick Hotel on the corner of the avenue in 1890.

The Scarisbrick family became the major Southport landowner in the early 1840s, buying land from both the Bold and Hesketh families who were in financial difficulties.

Seaside entertainment and treats

In 1924, Madame Navada was at 13 Scarisbrick Avenue – as well as selling ‘fancy goods’, she was a phrenologist, reading your character from the shape of your head! There was an American Bar at number 37, and several shops sold sweets and tobacco.

More pictures and information at Built on Sand – Scarisbrick Avenue