It was the 1860s before Olive Park became Victoria Park and house-building began in earnest. The minute books of the Wavertree Local Board of Health record a steady stream of plans being submitted for approval from 1862 onwards, when Mr William Webb's plan for the roads which became North and South Drives was given the go-ahead. As with Sandown Park, the idea was that individuals could purchase building plots on which to erect either detached or semi-detached dwellings of suitably grand dimensions. There were to be plenty of trees, but no lodges and no gates.

The residents of Victoria Park were drawn from a slightly 'lower rung' on the social ladder than those in Sandown Park. They were not the brokers, the 'merchant princes' and the shipowners, but instead a range of business and professional men, many of them earning their living locally within the village rather than in Liverpool. Gore's Directory for 1898 lists thirty different occupations here, ranging from an Artist to an Umbrella Manufacturer. A walk through Victoria Park gives you a good idea of the varying architectural tastes of the middle classes in Victorian Wavertree.