A house on the edge of a Wirral park confused neighbours for decades because of the strange 'puzzles' scratched into its walls.
The property, which once stood at the bottom of Heath Road in Bebington, was located close to Mayer Park until its demolition in the 1960s.
A grand and imposing looking building, the property was home to Thomas Francis and his strange 'puzzle stones' that left passers-by stumped.
On the outside wall of the property were a number of stones that carried mysterious and confusing inscriptions.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American Consul who visited Bebington, described the 'puzzle stones' when he wrote: “In the village of Bebington we saw a house built in imitation of a castle, with turrets in which an upper and under row of cannons were mounted. On the wall there were eccentric inscriptions cut into slabs of stone, but I could make no sense of these."
His house, which was built to look like a castle, had cannons added to the turret at the beginning of the 1800s when there was a threat of invasion from France.
But despite the cannons, quirky statues and other design elements that made the house stand out on Heath Road, it was the inscriptions in the walls that really grabbed people's attention.
One of the inscriptions read AR UBB I NGS TONEF ORAS SE S.
The seemingly incomprehensible collection of letters has been open to interpretation over the years, with one theory suggesting the full inscription records a raid on Bebington carried out by the Vikings Ivar and Ubbi, leaders of the Great Army.
However, a slight rearrangement of the letters turns the phrase into a much simpler, and somewhat ruder phrase - 'A rubbing stone for a****'.
Another stone read SUBTRACT 45 FROM 45 THAT 45 MAY REMAIN. This mathematical problem can be solved by writing the figures 1 to 9 in reverse order, over the same figures in ordinary order and subtracting the two lines. Mathematical problems were something that Mr Francis is thought to have excelled in.
A third slab depicted an inn from which hung the sign of the Two Crowns, accompanied by the words: “My name And sign is thirty shillings just, and he that tell My Name shall have a Quart on trust, for why is not five the fourth of twenty the same in all cases?”
This refers to coinage in use at the time. A mark was 13/4d in old money, a noble was 6/8d, while two crowns were worth ten shillings. The sum of these three amounts is thirty shillings. The name of the landlord was Mark Noble, and the inn was the Two Crowns, adding up to thirty shillings.
The property's owner Thomas Francis was born in 1762 and lived in Bebington for many years until his death in 1850.
He made his fortune from stone masonry and contractors, and was known in the area for playing tricks on people and having a dark sense of humour.
One story tells of how Mr Francis would order two coffins every year from a local coffin maker in Birkenhead and then spend his birthday lying down in one while insisting his wife do the same.
Mr Francis was buried in St Andrews' churchyard in Bebington and the puzzle stones remained in his wall until the 1960s when house and wall were demolished.
The puzzle stones were saved, and kept first on the wall of Mayer Park, but when it was found that they were suffering from erosion, they were taken to be kept in Bebington civic centre where they are now visible in the foyer of the library.
