Down an inner city dirt track is a "beautiful slice of heaven" people don't want to leave.
You'd almost miss the turning even if you're walking down Derwent Road looking for it. Trees and bushes, still green in winter, crowd the path, which forks at a sign saying 'PRIVATE' in bold letters. It might warn off outsiders, but standing in the grass between two rows of three-storey houses where roughly 100 people live, you feel anything but unwelcome.
Michael Chesterman, 36, lives in a top floor flat with his wife, son and new dog on Derwent Square in Old Swan, which he described as a "fun, beautiful slice of heaven". Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, he told the ECHO: "In an urban area, it's hard to find a little patch of just this beautiful green space that goes back to the days of community, where it's all shared space, not your private, fenced-off garden.
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"Nestled around Green Lane and Prescot Road and its busyness is this little green field that every house owns up to the centre. There's actually a plot for how much your property owns, but nobody has fenced it off, nobody has quarantined it to say 'This is mine'. Even with things like trimming trees or bringing furniture out, it's, 'Hey, are we okay with this?', so it brings a lot of respect to each other, not just an 'I'm going to do what I want'.
"It's a bit smooth in the middle, and then you've got some exploring woods on the left and the right that are still very safe, so my son is able to run and jump and has a few trees to climb. There are also some places where we can sit in a different part of the square, or just be out front of our house, and he can go explore - he knows his boundaries.
"There's no through traffic, we know who lives here, we know who doesn't, so there's very little fear. And he knows everybody as well, so he knows, 'Okay, I don't know that person, so I'm going to come back'. In summertime, it becomes even more of a community than it is in winter. For my son's birthday, we'll do bouncy castles. If we host anything, everybody on the square is invited.
"You don't have to ask, you don't have to look for an invitation. We just expect everyone else to come and join in. And if anybody else does something, there are speakers, boom boxes, sometimes barbecues, everybody comes together and just enjoys the space together. It makes me think of all the movies you see of the 60 and 70s, of people playing on the street, and everybody knows their neighbours, everybody knows everyone - that's what our square is like, and it's very wonderful."
You might associate this sense of community and shared ownership more with an intentional community - a commune where people are drawn and bound together by a common religious, social or political vision. Perhaps that's because some residents are devout Christians who've found a home here at least in part because of their faith. Or maybe it's because Derwent Square is concealed from surrounding streets, the roar of cars lost in trees, and with people generally only coming here if it is their destination. You don't exactly stumble on Derwent Square.
Much of this area was farmland in the early 19th century. Built in the 1860s, the unique street's layout stands out among the Victorian terraces when viewed from above on Google Maps. It's one of Liverpool's 36 conservation areas, which cover roughly 9% of the city and protect around 19,000 properties.
Unadopted, and therefore not maintained at public expense by Liverpool Council, the street is one of 23 historically significant sites in Liverpool included in Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register 2022. The list includes important places at risk of loss due to neglect, decay or surrounding development.
Only a couple of the houses are still sole residences. Most are now split into flats, including Michael's, which sits atop a community house run by Youth With a Mission, a Christian group training mostly young people to be missionaries around the world.
It offers affordable accommodation to Christian workers arriving in Liverpool, to people needing a weekend escape or a temporary home in summers between university, and to missionary groups visiting from out of town. Its hospitality room overlooks the central grass, where kids pick bluebells in Spring, and anti-aircraft guns were stationed during World War II.
Michael and his wife are on hand as "house parents" to maintain hygiene standards, ensure everyone plays their part with chores, resolve disputes, and check in with residents who're struggling with money or mental health. People stay for anything from two nights to two years, including Abigail Baskett and her husband, who lived in the community house soon after they first arrived in Liverpool four years ago.
The couple from the rural West Midlands moved to a one-room flat with high ceilings on the same side of the square last year, and they were moving yet again to a bigger space across the grass when the ECHO visited. Carrying the last of her belongings across the square, Abigail, 31, said: "It's not a community without the ins and outs and ups and downs of life.
"Normal life chaos exists, but the desire in the hearts of the people to see everybody right is really precious. That's the reason why we've stayed, because of the green and the relationships. It is a place where we haven't wanted to move from, because when that exists, it's something to hold on to. There's just that sense of community here that means it's somewhere people enjoy to be, and it's somewhere people want to stay."
It's the type of street where neighbours are on a first name basis, and they can pop next door to ask for milk, sugar of use of a printer when they've run out. One of the missionary group's recently staying with Michael even borrowed microphones and music equipment from a man a few doors down, who himself is involved with the Salvation Army.
Although they're wary of unwanted attention, they happily introduced the next neighbour to a stranger knocking on their door, welcoming them in for coffee and conversation. Standing on her doorstep, not long home, was Carol, a first-name-only nan who Abigail described as "the life of the square".
She first found Derwent Square when her daughter was in a nearby nursery, so when she was looking for somewhere to buy and a one-bed flat came up on the street, she thought: "I've got to live here, I've got to stay here."
Carol fell in love with its "Bohemian" vibe, saying: "I just loved it. It was just so quiet and it's just lovely. It's a proper, proper community, it is, I have to admit, it is. It's lovely."
She added: "Michael's little boy Ryder, he plays out. The house next to him is Stephen and Louise, they've got kids, they play out. Then there's Remy, with his mum and dad and his sisters and brothers, they all play out. Then there are flats where people have lived for ages, and Dave does all the gardening, so in the summer, it's kept nice and the kids play football. It's nice to see the kids playing."
Abigail said: "I think this square represents the fullness of life. You've got the international community, you've got the older generation who have been here for a long time and have encouraged that sense of family. You've got the kids, you've got the mums and the dads, you've got the aunts and the uncles, and you've got the grandparents. It is every aspect of life all in the mix."
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