MORE on the 'mystery' of the now-gone Waterloo Buildings at Livesey whose origins reader Jack Dickinson sought from Looking Back after he recalled playing in the run-down premises as a lad in the 1940s.

For alerted by local history buff Mike Sumner's revelation a fortnight ago that the place became the Livesey New Inn in the mid-19th Century, reader Barrie Higham tells that it was originally a workhouse.

Its connection with the old-time poor laws, says Barrie, is pointed out in the 1988 book of Lancashire memories, "Pea Billy, Strong Dick and Many More," by local historian and former East Lancashire journalist David Boderke.

"The old workhouse on Livesey Branch Road later became a pub known as the Livesey New Inn. It had a bowling green by the side and a stone staircase inside, but it was still known to the locals as the 'Old Workhouse'," David wrote.

Previously known as the Factory Arms Inn, the pub, David adds, later closed and became a large house before being converted into flats. Ending its days as the sub-divided Waterloo Mansions, the old building was demolished to make way for the access to a new housing estate built at Livesey in the 1970s.