THE RESIDENTS 1840

James Booth
John WiseHeart
Jane Blood
Rev Richard Shiel
Robert Hutchinson

THE SANDYMOUNT SCHOOL OF ART

LONDON BRIDGE ROAD ON FACEBOOK

THE RESIDENTS - 1839

James Booth
Thomas White
Jane Blood
James Byrne
Robert Hutchinson

1840 FOLLOWS TOMMOROW

LONDON BRIDGE ROAD 1830 - 2000

1830

1850

1860

1875

1880

1900

1960

2000

1901 NATIONAL CENSUS

The 1901 Census listed all those occupying the road on the day of the census. The affluence of the area is obvious with many of the houses having servants and house maids. The full listing for London Bridge Road is as follows,

1 John Cagney (50)
Wife Charlotte (40) Patrick (20) Dolly (16) Bridget (14) Jilly (13) Laurence (9) John Jnr (7) Winford (5). Sister in Law Sarah Byrne & her son Francis (22)
3 Mrs Anna Powell (34)
5 William Mc Laughlin (Commercial Agent) aged 47
Wife Catherine (32) Mary (12) Charles (10) Alexander (8) William (5) Margaret (3) Ester (1)
7 Bernard Leech, Builder (61) Frederick (22) Builder, Samuel (21) 8th Hussar regiment, Nora (19) Emily (18) George (17) Kathleen Day born in London was 27 and described as a niece.
9 James Lyttle (63) Former Army Secretary
Wife Charlotte (63), Maggie (33) a teacher and servant Bridget Kearney (24) originally from County Mayo
11 Henry Gunning (52) boiler smith.
Wife Bridget (50) Patrick (27) boiler smith, John (24) Engine Fitter, Bridget (21)
13 Mr. J Cullen
15 (James Manson) Not in census but mentioned in Thoms
Wife Esther (60) John (26) Anne (22) Ernest (4) and Jean Manson niece (27)
17 James Whelan (68)
Wife Mary (56) Laundress, Annie (23) Dressmaker, Dora (21) and four boarders William Quinlan (Jeweller) , Edward Woods, Mary Woods & Joseph Quinn.
(Palmerville Terrace)
19 Mr James Fitzpatrick (40) Baker
Wife Martha (30), Margaret (8) Sylvester (6) Sarah (1)
21 Andrew Murphy (29) Son Customs Officer
Mother Mary (69), John (32), Elizabeth (34) all from County Kilkenny
23 Mr G Beard DMP
25 John McGrath (53)
Wife Marie (50), Michael (25) Librarian, Alice (22), Joseph (21), Marie (18)
(Leah Terrace)
27 George McLoughlin DMP
29 Mrs Kate O’Reilly (51)
William (32), Joseph (28), Lucie (18), Gertrude (14), Hugh (11)
31 Thomas Rice (38) Sanitary Officer
Wife Mary Anne (25), Mary (1)
33 John Oliver (52) Judges Crier
Wife Susan (44) John (13), Charlotte (10) Martha(8) Ellen (5). Brother in Law James Gee (51) & wife Charlotte (42).
35 Mr William Graham (44) a bottle maker
Wife Elizabeth (43) Annie (20) a Clerk, William (19) Elizabeth (16), Samuel (14) Peter (9), Richard (6)
37 Mr William McGrath (41) shipping clerk
Sister Mary (40) brother Phillip (25)
39 Mrs Caroline Glasse (41) Telegraph Operator
Elizabeth McMullen (80) Boarder
41 Richard Ellery (31) Brass Finisher
Wife Annie(32) from Manchester, Caroline(8), Annie(7), Alicia (5), Gertrude (3), Richard (2) Joshua Ellery brother (17) & Lucie Margot (23) boarder
43 Patrick McCabe (32) Court Clerk
Wife Margaret (29)
45 Mark Ruddle (46) Electrical Engineer
47 Thomas Henderson (32) Book keeper
Wife Alice (26), Ottiwell (3) and Thomas Reburn (23) boarder
49 Mrs Susan Straney (44)
Susan (19),Margaret (17),Patrick (15),John (8),Margaret Straney(38) sister in law.
Rosemount Terrace
1 Richard Patterson (37) GPO
Wife Kate (37), William (9), George (7), James (6), Nora (2), Edmund (1), Bridget Lee (18) servant.
2 William Barry (39) Publishing Manager
Wife Geraldine (30), Edwin (3) and servant Annie Farrell (18)
3 William Murray
4 John Mullally (57)(affiliated to Fontenoy Hurling Club in Ringsend Prk)
Wife Maria (47), James (19) a timber saleman, Mary (23) Draper, John (22) Carpenter, Charles (21) Carperter, Eilleen(19) Clerk, Thomas (14), Kathleen (12), Alice (11), Albert (10), Leo (9).
5 William Porter (45) Carriage Builder
Wife Hannah (39), Jeanie Porter (21) niece.
6 John Gill (28) Master Mariner
Sarah (23) born Scotland, Richard (4), William (2) and Kate Farnel (21) servant
7 Joe Woods (31)
County Cork born wife Anne (29) and servant Catherine Lynch (17)
8 Mrs Bridget O’Hea (54)
Nora (24), Alfred (23)
9 Thomas Thompson (47) GPO
Wife Isabella (45), Thomas (15), Helen (14), Charles (7), Gertrude (6)
10 Edwin McLoughlin (39) Art Iron Worker
Wife Harriet (42), Edwin (19), Louisa(16), Charles (13), Annie (8), Norah (5), Francis (2)
11 Thomas C Murphy (35) Piano Tuner
Wife Harriet (36), Florence (12), Herbert(8), Olive (6), Mary Herbert (24) Servant.
12 John Waters

2 Robert Graham (43) GPO
Wife Anne (41) GPO, Richard (21) GPO, George (20), Eva (19), Robert (15) GPO, Mary (13), Samuel (11), Jane (9), James (7), Eveline (4), Florence (2) & Mary McLoughlin (51) Servant
4 Mr T White (31) GPO
Wife Sara (28) NS Teacher, Mary (2), Bridget Higgins (21) servant.
6 Mrs Eliza Lindsay (53)
Elizabeth (27), Francis (26), William (23), Albert (22), Henry (20).
8 Mr PJ Gormley (35)County Carlow born Journalist
Wife Annie (27), James (5), Margaret Cusack (17) Servant
(Davis Terrace)
1 Charles Turner
2 John Howe
Wife Jane (25), Joseph (3), Thomas (0).
Dodder Vale Cottage
Dodder Lodge Pumping Station

1848 GRIFFITHS VALUATION

Griffiths Valuation
In 1848 Griffiths Valuation attempted to cover the entire country with a census of dwellers and owners. The listing for London Bridge Road which according to Thom’s Directory only had seven houses was as follows;

Carey, Thomas Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Barrington Boyle R., Esq. Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Blocksome, James Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Blood, Jane Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Carey, Thomas Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Diggs, Joseph Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Dixon, Sarah Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Hudson, Robert Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Keogh, James Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Knight, Samuel Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Lawlor,Sarah Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Lundy, Richard Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Mathews, Samuel Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Player, Samuel Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Primate, Charles Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Vavasour Rev. Irishtown, London Bridge Road
Wren, James Irishtown, London Bridge Road

BLOOMSDAY

The author James Joyce in his literary marvel ‘Ulysses’ mentions London Bridge Road. Ulysses first published in 1922 tells the tale of Leopold Bloom’s travels through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904 (the day of Joyce's first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle). The lovers of Joyce worldwide now celebrate 16th June annually as Bloomsday. In Episode Ten title The Wandering Rocks, Joyce observes,
‘Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through Irishtown along London Bridge Road, one with a sanded umbrella, one with a midwife’s bag in which eleven cockles rolled.’ Another quote alluded to ‘the boy that had the bicycle off the London Bridge Road always riding up and down.’

SHOPS AND BUSINESSES

Shops & Businesses
There were two shops on the road for many years. Neary’s was located next to Number Seven. Hugh Neary originally had a dairy at the rear of his premises but it is more remembered for getting paraffin for lamps and heaters during the winter. A walled courtyard gave way to the small shop where Anne Byrne served faithfully for many years. The shop was replaced with 7A, 7B&C and 7D with the rear yard was used as part of London Bridge Drive. Seven A is currently operated as a Art School but has been the location of Physio Needs and Appassionata Flowers. There was another small shop at the end of Manifold’s Lane operated by the Manifold Family. It was in a small garage in this lane that the Sandymount Credit Union had their first offices in the 1960’s before moving to Bath Avenue.

SHOPS AND BUSINESSES

Shops & Businesses
There were two shops on the road for many years. Neary’s was located next to Number Seven. Hugh Neary originally had a dairy at the rear of his premises but it is more remembered for getting paraffin for lamps and heaters during the winter. A walled courtyard gave way to the small shop where Anne Byrne served faithfully for many years. The shop was replaced with 7A, 7B&C and 7D with the rear yard was used as part of London Bridge Drive. Seven A is currently operated as a Art School but has been the location of Physio Needs and Appassionata Flowers. There was another small shop at the end of Manifold’s Lane operated by the Manifold Family. It was in a small garage in this lane that the Sandymount Credit Union had their first offices in the 1960’s before moving to Bath Avenue.

TRANSPORT ON LONDON BRIDGE ROAD

Transport
In the early 1870’s tram tracks were laid the length of London Bridge Road and Bath Avenue for a horse drawn tram service that connected the Martello Tower on the Strand Road, Sandymount with Nelson’s Pillar in O’Connell Street. The service began on October 1st 1872. The service then began at Gilford Road where stables and garages were built. The journey with a two horse tram would travel down London Bridge Road and along Bath Avenue until the passed beneath the railway bridge where a stable hand would be on duty with two extra horses to pull the tram up onto Northumberland Road and then return to Bath Avenue to await the next tram. On January 14th 1901, the horse was replaced with electricity on William Murphy’s Dublin United Tram Company route. It was one of the few routes served by a single deck tram known as a ‘bogeycar’ due to the low bridge on Bath Avenue.
In those days the routes were not numbered but name plates at the front of the tram indicated its destinations and in order to assist those many who were illiterate at the time in Dublin a green half crescent indicated that it was the tram required for any one travelling the route from Sandymount to the city centre.

The tram service ceased on that route on 31st July 1932. For many years Coras Iompair Eireann, the forerunner of Dublin Bus operated the number 52 bus, a single deck bus that became a one man operation and ran from Lakelands School to Hawkins Street via London Bridge Road and Bath Avenue. The bus stop on London Bridge Road into town was outside Number Seven and on the return it was by the rectory wall opposite Number Three. The number 52 which was then used to service University College Dublin was removed from the route in 1998

IN THE NEWS

In The News
The road was often mentioned in the newspaper in the latter part of the 19th Century and early part of the 20th as one of Dublin city’s main Morgue was located near where the Boy Scouts hut is presently located. Much of the business of investigating deaths by the city’s coroners was moved to Store Street but the morgue continued to be in use until the 1960’s. The matter was raised in Dail Eireann on March 22nd 1960 when the then newly elected TD for Dublin South West asked the then Minister for Local Government Neil Blaney TD ‘what was the present position in regarding the proposal to close London Bridge Road Morgue and whether any steps can be taken to expedite its closing in view of the distress and inconvenience caused to the next of kin of deceased persons and witnesses who have to attend inquests in such an unsuitable building. To which the Minister replied the Dublin Corporation had the decision to close the morgue under advisement and would be completed as soon as work was completed on the City Morgue at Store Street.
The morgue had often made the news with sensation cases none more so when in October 1928 two boys playing in allotments off Bath Avenue found the body of a male infant about a week old wrapped in a bundle of newspapers and old clothes. The newspaper reported that the incident was reported to the Civic Guards and the body removed to the Morgue at London Bridge Road.
Another sensational case was the finding of a female body near the bridge on August 23rd 1900. When E Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police located in the Barracks were informed that the partially clad body was found Constables Henry Flower, John Hanily and Constable Toal were sent to investigate. There was no identification on the body and no one had been reported missing. The unidentified body was taken to the London Bridge Morgue and the coroner deemed the death by drowning and the body was buried in Glasnevin Cemetary.
On September 11th 1900, Constable Henry Flower was charged with murder. The dead girl was thirty year old Bridget Gannon and she had been going out with Flowers. He had asked her to marry him but as he was a Protestant and she was a Catholic, the local parish priest warned her not to marry outside her faith. Gannon’s friend and fellow parlour maid Margaret Clowry had been dating two constables Flowers and Thomas Dockery. On the night of the death Gannon and Clowry had met with Flowers and they had a drink in Davy’s public house on Baggot Street. Clowry said that she left the two to walk on alone and that was the last she saw of Bridget Gannon.
The case took another twist on September 14th three days after Flowers was charged when Constable John Hanily was found in the police station dead having cut his own throat. The was insufficient evidence to convict Flowers who after his acquittal resigned from the force left the country.
In the 1930’s in front of a parish priest in a death bed confession Margaret Clowry confessed to killing Gannon in a robbery as Clowry had recently lost her job and was desperate for cash.
June 1921 in the midst of the Irish War of Independence local Head Constable Fry of the Royal Irish Constabulary was shot as he walked along London Bridge Road with his wife.

In April 1958 the newpapers reported that two fourteen years olds from the road Thomas McKeon and Michael Clarke were rescued from the River Liffey after they got into difficulty on a homemade raft.
In November 2008 Dane Pearse of London Bridge Drive was found guilty of the murder of Mark Spellman on August 4th 2007. In the early hours of the morning a verbal altercation between the two men occurred which led to the fatal stabbing of Spellman who collapsed in the garden of Number 9. Pearse who was also taken to hospital with minor injuries was arrested and charged. After the guilty verdict he was given the mandatory life sentence in prison.

THE R111

The first two hundred and sixty six yards of the R111 orbital route through Dublin city is designated as London Bridge Road. Bóthar Dhroichead Londain as it is known as Gaeilge travels from the junction of Tritonville Road and Irishtown Road to the Bridge over the River Dodder. There are forty four dwellings on the main road with twenty seven in Ennis Grove, sixteen in London Bridge Drive and seven houses on a laneway known locally as ‘Manifold’s Lane’. In 2009 another twenty four apartments were opened in the Old Dublin Corporation Pump House Station near the Bridge.
The road is located in the postal district of Dublin 4, a postal number introduced by the British Government in 1917 to assist postal distribution. It is also listed as part of the Pembroke Estate. The Pembroke Estate was named after George Herbert the 11th Earl of Pembroke (1759 – 1827) who inherited the vast estate from the 7th Viscount Richard Fitzwilliam in 1816. In 1833 the estate’s size in Dublin was estimated at 2,300 acres.
The Estate became what was known as a Township through an Act of Parliament in Westminster in 1863 for the purposes of local government. The area was governed by appointed commissioners until 1899 when it was made an urban district until 1930 when it became part of the City of Dublin under Dublin Corporation control.
With the political ward boundary disecting the road, the odd numbered houses are in Sandymount while the even number and Ennis Grove is in Irishtown/Ringsend.

According to a report in The Dublin Chronicle newspaper in May 1792,
‘The marsh between Beggars Bush and Ringsend through which the river Dodder passes in its way to Ringsend Bridge, which contains almost sixty acres, we hear is taken by Mr. Vavasour from Lord Fitzwilliam, on a lease of 150years. It is every tide inundated by the sea and the Dodder. The taker it is said intends immediately to reclaim by a complete double embankment of the Dodder which, thus confined to a determined channel, will then form a handsome canal through it, a circumstance that will not only ornament an unsightly spot but materially improve the salubrity of the air of Irishtown and Ringsend.’
Up to 1800 the entire area was a marshy swampland created by the River Dodder that took a different course than the one it travels today with a number of tributaries. The flooding from both the Dodder and the sea caused much heartache for those few who lived in the area. Ringsend and Irishtown were often cut off like two small islands when the flooding was severe.
The present course of the River Dodder was created in 1796 but the area was till prone to flooding from the turbulent waters from the mountains. Councillor Vavasour set up special pumps to drain the marshy area into the nearby sea. The idea came from the Dutch who had reclaimed thousands of acres from the sea with their poulders and the equipment for the drainage was imported from Holland and as a result the new dry land was known as ‘New Holland’. Despite the drainage scheme the area was prone to flooding but this problem was alleviated when Sir John Gray in 1868 diverted the waters to reservoirs to feed the city of Dublin. With the river course altered the area began to dry out and areas such as Irishtown began to extend.
When the road or grassy pathway as it was then was created the land on the Bath Avenue side of the River was owned by Vavasour while on the other side of the Dodder the land was leased by the Verchoyle’s family. Richard Verschoyle signed the lease agreement with The Right Honourable Richard Lord Viscount Fitzwilliam on February 4th 1804. Originally it is thought that the Dodder was bridged so that British soldiers and their families could travel from Beggar’s Bush Barracks which opened in 1827 to the Royal Chapel of St Matthews at the end of London Bridge Road. It also gave the military men quick access for themselves and their families to the baths located along the sea at Cranfield and Murrays Baths at Pembroke Street. The church had been built in 1704 but with the increase in numbers attending was extensively renovated in 1879.

The original Dodder Bridge was a rope bridge for foot passengers only but was replaced by a stronger wooden structure but this was a private tolled bridge. The wooden bridge began to fall into disrepair and the charging of a toll was not liked by everyone. The Pembroke Estate lobbied the then Dublin City Council known as the Dublin Grand Jury for the replacement of the wooden structure with a stone built bridge that was completed in1857 and importantly there was no toll on the new bridge. It was named London Bridge after the structure over the River Thames in London, England
The River Dodder that flows beneath rises in the Wicklow Mountain and travels into the River Liffey opposite the O2 arena. Just before it reaches London Bridge near the back of Lansdowne Road rugby ground the River Swan enters the Dodder having made its way through Rathmines hence lending its name to the shopping centre in that area.
The regulation of the river benefited at least one business in the area, Haig’s Distillery. Founded in 1789 by Robert Haig, a descendant of the famous scotch distiller, the distillery used a sluice system to power their plant. The distillery was infamous with many run ins with the revenue authorities whose men were intimidated and assaulted as they visited the distillery to assess and collect taxes. Some revenue men disappeared completely with foul play suspected. The barracks located near St. Matthews Church was one of the busiest on the Southside of the city trying to protect the Revenue officials. The distillery closed in 1860 and is now the home of the Mount Herbert Hotel.
In the early 1800’s a half dozen houses were built. The Thom’s Directory of 1839 lists the residents of London Bridge Road as James Booth, Thomas White, Jane Blood, James Byrne and Robert Hutchinson listed as a Supervisor of Excise. The houses built were the houses 2, 4 and 6 and 9, 11 and 13 as they stand today. The road continued to expand.
In 1848 Dahlia Terrace was built. The three house terrace are the present day 3 , 5 and 7 with the first residents listed as Mrs Alicia Murphy, Samuel Player and Robert Edward Mulhall. The graveyard at St. Matthew’s Church has a headstone for Betsy Stothard who died on November 26th 1833 with an address at London Bridge Road. Miss Stothard died during a Cholera outbreak that affected much of the Ringsend/Irishtown area.

A large house was built near the bridge and named Victoria House and was inhabited for many years by Henry Bowyer and his family. Another expansion was undertaken from the 1860’s just a decade after the Great Famine. In 1870 Number One London Bridge Road was built in the style of a castle. In 1879 the four houses of Palmerville Terrace were inhabited which are 19 – 25 of the present day lay out. The following year the first four houses of Leah Terrace were built and occupied, the present day 27 – 33. Two year later 35 – 49 were inhabited.
From the arrival of the first residents on London Bridge Road until the turn of the century the road was predominately occupied by Protestants who had the benefit of St. Matthews Church, a national school located near Dodder Terrace and now used by a Gospel Church and a dispensary located beside the church that burned down in the 1960’s and was demolished to make road improvements to Church Avenue.
On the opposite side of the road apart from the four houses near Tritonville Road, much of the landed housed the Dodder Vale Cottage and its lands. In 1884 the present number system was introduced. The Dodder Vale cottage was eventually sold by the Verschoyle’s family and built on as Ennis Grove. Ennis Grove was named after Edward Ennis who was born in 1893 at No. 5 Dromard Terrace Sandymount. During the Easter Rising 1916 he was shot dead on the railway line near Eamon DeValera’s battalion headquarters in Boland’s Mills. The rebels had been commanding the railway line to stop the British moving reinforcements into the city from Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire).
Today there are a number of off shoots on the road. Ennis Grove originally named after a fatal casualty of the 1916 Easter Rising expanded to the present day twenty seven houses. London Bridge Drive is a small cul de sac estate of sixteen two storey houses while Manifold Lane has seven houses. The Church of Ireland rectory located at the junction of London Bridge Road and Irishtown Road was acquired by the State and transformed into a Garda Station when the force moved from the old building located on the corner of Barrack Lane opposite Clarke’s Public House. The Rectory was demolished and in 2010 a modern new Garda Station was opened. One lane has almost disappeared that of Stable Lane that led to the five small cottages known as D’Arcy Cottages. The remnant of that lane is located between 7D and Number Nine.
The road began in the 1830’s as three houses what are today nine eleven and thirteen. To this was added two, four and six on the opposite side of the road. In 1848 the three house terrace Dahlia Terrace was built and are now three, five and seven. Number fifteen and seventeen were next followed shortly after by the building of Palmerville Terrace which is located today as nineteen to twenty five London Bridge Road. The large houses were then built. Dodder Lodge which was built on a large piece of land where Ennis Grove currently resides. This was the home originally of the Verschoyle family. Victoria Lodge was next to be built at the bridge and is today thirty six A. The building continued down the southern side of the road with the building of Leah Terrace twenty seven to forty nine of the present numbers. In 1896 N H Davis Esq. lodged plans for the construction of another terrace of houses on the Northern side of the road. Architects Frederick Morley of Great Brunswick Street drew up the planes for Rosemount Terrace. The twelve houses were divided into two terraces of six with a small laneway between them leading down to two more houses at the rere known as Davis Terrace. Five cottages on Stable lane between today’s number seven and nine were built in 1908 known later as Darcy’s Cottages. The next expansion of the road was the building of Ennis Grove in the 1960’s and finally the last substantial development was London Bridge Drive in the early 1990’s. The drive took in Stable Lane and Darcy’s Cottages, the dairy yard of Number Seven, some waste ground and the rear gardens of a number of houses including number five. The last residential building on the road to be built was number 3a London Bridge Road. The last construction work on the road was the new Garda Station opened in 2010 replacing the old one that had been located in the former St Matthew’s Rectory.

The Pumping Station located at the bridge was built by Dublin Corporation to assist the moving of the city’s sewage from the low lying districts it served to its outlet into the River Liffey near the Pigeon House. After falling into disuse the building was renovated and turned into Council housing apartments.

THE STORY OF LONDON BRIDGE ROAD, DUBLIN

THE STORY OF LONDON BRIDGE ROAD, THE R111 IN DUBLIN 4, IRELAND