From the time of its charter to the end of the nineteenth century Hale village remained a rural hamlet inhabited mostly by workers employed in the local agriculture. Liverpool was growing apace, thanks to its deep-water facilities at the mouth of the Mersey, but Hale remained a backwater, bypassed even by the railway age. Even the fording point of the Mersey fell into disuse, as bridges provided a more convenient river crossing. But even Hale couldn't avoid the revolutionary social developments of the twentieth century. A spate of ribbon development in the inter-war years was followed in the 1960s by an explosion of three housing estates to meet post-war demand. The village population mushroomed overnight to an unprecedented five thousand or so.

The village's character changed. A new and larger school and a range of shops were built. The growth was artificial, though, and for most of the new inhabitants Hale was nothing more than an attractive rural dormitory. A halt was called to any further building development and the village now enjoys the rare privilege of being "washed over" within a green belt. This has virtually put a halt to planning permission for building development within the village boundaries. Superficially this is in the interest of the environment. In practice, though, the policy's inflexibility is resulting in empty plots being left to become overgrown eyesores.

The garden centre in the middle of the village is an example. The supermarket at Ivy Farm Court is another. Both have proved unviable in the face of competition from Asda at nearby Halebank. The building and greenhouses of the garden centre are falling into disrepair and the land around them becoming overgrown. The supermarket has been closed and boarded up for more than a decade. (Recently a pharmacy took over one-third of the floor-space, showing a possible future solution for the rest of the premises).

It's a dilemma that the villagers should have been able to solve for themselves, but which may now be solved for them. Halton Council is going ahead with a new unitary development plan, against the wishes of the majority of Hale residents, which will change the village's protected status and its very nature.

Hale is already encircled on three sides by huge swathes of concrete and brick. Speke municipal housing estate, the hugely expanding Liverpool John Lennon Airport, both only a couple of miles to the east, new expansions of Speke industrial estate and the broad concrete sweep of the Ford road (sorry, the Jaguar road now). They all lurk on Hale's horizon like auguries of thunder to come.

In the inter-war years ribbon development saw some quite excellent houses built along Church Road, on the way to the Lighthouse, and a series of superior detached thatched houses on Hale Road, the main entrance to the village from Liverpool. These latter have become almost as big a tourist attraction as the thatched cottages in the village that are hundreds of years old.

A couple of decades ago one of these grand houses caught fire. Sparks from its thatched roof ignited a couple of other thatches, not immediately next door, but some way down the line. These secondary fires were quickly extinguished, but the fire brigade was kept busy running up and down the road to check on all the neighbours.

The primary conflagration was eventually brought under control, but the house needed to be virtually rebuilt. When it was it had lost its thatched roof and with it most of its character.