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.
My great great great grandparents Samuel Leech d 1873 and Eliza Higgens d 1867 plus my great great Bernard B Leech d 1901 and Sarah Sharp lived and died at nr 7. Not sure when they moved in though
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