The hamlet of Grassendale was acquired by Robert de Blackburn, the lord of the manor of Garston, from Richard de Toxteth in the 14th century. In the 19th century it developed as a residential suburb. Grassendale was made into an ecclesiastical parish in 1855 following the opening of St Mary's Church in August 1853. Grassendale was recorded as a site with Catholic landowners in 1717. The Roman Catholic church of St. Austin, served by the English Benedictines, opened in 1838.
