Throughout its first 200 years, the building was the residence of a number of notable figures, including the Earl of Sefton and Liverpool shipowner Frederick Richards Leyland.

In the 16th century, Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries suppressed the Knights Hospitaller leading the land being confiscated but then later restored by Mary I.

Eventually, the land came under ownership of the Brettarghs of Holt who were reputed to have acquired it from an ancient family named "de Woolton".

[6] Leyland, who was somewhat of an art enthusiast, decorated the house with paintings of varying styles including Edward Burne-Jones's Night and Day and Ford Madox Brown's The Entombment.

[7][8] Leyland later sold the building to the McGuffies, a family of shipowners who demolished the west wing and converted the remainder into a Hydropathic Hotel.

[9] After a short spell as the headquarters of the Middlesex Regiment and as an army hospital in the 1950s, the building was converted into a fee-paying girls' school under the management of the Convent of Notre Dame.

[1][16] From its outside, the slate roofed two-storey structure is built entirely of stone consisting of seven bay windows, two of which break forward under pediments.

The door directly to the fireplace's left leads to an octagonal shaped turquoise room with and a decorated ceiling that contains a circular painting of Frederic Leighton's The Garden of the Hesperides.

The principal staircase which ascends to the second floor is another of Adam's original features consisting of wrought iron baluster and a moulded mahogany handrail.