At the end of Lance Lane, cross the dual carriageway of Childwall Road at the traffic lights, and turn right. Looking across Childwall Road, you will see a terrace of three large houses at right-angles to the road, including the Wonderland day nursery.

This terrace - with its tall gables, roughcast walls and small-paned casement windows - must have looked very contemporary in 1899, when it was built. The architect seems to have been Thomas Edgar Eccles, a local man who was clearly aware of the designs of Voysey and others in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Eccles, who lived in Roby, was born in 1865 and was to become president of the Liverpool Architectural Society in 1908. His brother, the coal agent J. Heron Eccles, lived in the house furthest from the road ('The Poplars') which is actually numbered 1a Lance Lane. This house was also the home, between 1980 and 1982, of Alan Bleasdale, the famous Liverpool playwright. It was here that he wrote 'The Boys from the Blackstuff'.