The Domesday extract that shows the six unlisted Berewicks of West Derby

In Domesday Book, Hale and Halewood were not mentioned by name but it is thought they were one of the six unlisted 'outliers', or Berewicks, of West Derby. Hale, with its wood, had been given to a Norman knight, Johannes de Hibernia (or Ireland), by William I. In 1081 Johannes ordered a small chapel of ease to be built in Hale and was buried there when he died seven years later.

The Manorial history of Halewood is entangled with that of Hale and cannot be cleanly divided. Even the manor house of the Irelands of Hale, the Hutte, lay within the boundary of Halewood until Hale Hall became the manorial seat in the late 17th century. The manorial history becomes even more complicated when it is learned that two other families held manorial land in Halewood; the Hollands and the Lovels.

Halewood, as its name suggests, was once the Wood of Hale. Up to late medieval times the Wood continued to be part of Hale and was not a manor in its own right. Once land ownership was divided between the descendants of these manorial families, coupled with the disafforestation of Halewood, then the Wood of Hale finally began to assume manorial boundaries of its own. However, large tracts of land in the Ramsbrook-Halebank area still belonged to the Lord of the Manor of Hale.

By the 13th Century, the land in Halewood was roughly divided between two owners, although this is a simplification of a complex pattern of ownership. Generally, much of the southern part was owned by the Irelands, Lords of Hale, while the remainder and a greater part of the Township was owned by the Holland family, their superior Lords. Both families now resided in moated houses, a measure of their social status. During the late 13th century, Robert de Holland was the manorial lord of Hale and Halewood. In 1285, Roberts' daughter, Avena, married Adam de Ireland, an act which effectively brought two feuding families together. The Hutte was to stay in the Ireland family for the next 300 years.