Entries tagged with “history” from Palmerston Residents Association

The Residents Association have received a copy of an article written by Bobby Cosgrove. It is reproduced below and we would like to acknowledge the source as Bobby's sole work.

The area around the Hollywood hills that we now call Sydenham was in the 1860 a very different place compared to what it is today, the railway line to Bangor had two stations one at Sydenham the other at Glenmachan

At this time there were only 5 streets on the Lough side of the Hollywood Road they were Park Ave, Palmerston Rd, Victoria Rd, Station Rd, and Inverary Ave. On this side there were only 16 houses from the Belmont Rd down to Inverary Ave and the gentry occupied most of these houses, and they read like a who's who of the employers of Belfast.

Strandtown House at were the Strand Cinema now sits was the Anderson Family residence, they owned the Lagan Felt Works.

Thomas Major of Preston, Smyth and Co owned Cambridge Villas on the site of the Hotel and this is were the Cambridge Rooms gets its name from.

Brandon Towers was the home of the Professor J.L. Porter of Queens College, now the area of Brandon Parade.

Sir Otto Jaffe of the ropeworks occupied Canadian villas in what is now Sydenham Gds he bought the property from James Combe of the Foundry

Another large house in this area was the first one to be built called Sydenham Lodge and was occupied by William Ewing linen merchant.

There was a villa that stood at the Hollywood Rd end of the Pamerson Rd called Bunker Hill, it was owned by an Ulster-Scot who took part in the battle of the same name during the American War of Independence.

Chester Cottage was the residence of the Rev Jas Speers and later the family home of G.W. Wolff of the shipyards and renamed the DEN

James Agnew owned Parmerson House, which give its name to the road he was a Timber merchant

Two other properties on the Pamerson Rd had very strange names even by Victorian standards they were Strandforeland Terrance & Sydenhamville these names were changed by the people who later bought the properties.

Alma House was in between Station Rd and Inverary Ave and the resident was a Richard Reade of the Bedford Street Weaving Co.

The last house on this side of the Hollywood road was at the corner of Inverary Ave and was called Inverary and was the home of a Mr Masterson a Tea Merchant in Belfast.

There were 4 streets on the countryside of the road and they were Sydenham Ave, Circular Ave "now road" Cairnburn Rd, and Glenmachan Rd. and from the junction of the Belmont Rd up to Tillysburn there were only 14 properties. The main ones of interest were

The Lord Mayor lived in Aspen Cottage later called Dehra Lodge.

Edgecumbe House was the home of the wee shipyard owner Workman.

Clonaver House was the residence of a James Girdwood this is were the name of the Army camp came from this man, owned a carpet empire.

The Henderson Family owned Norwood Tower.

The Moat was the family home of the Valentines who owned the Northern Spinning Mill. This is the most interesting of all the property as it was on the site of an ancient church and graveyard and finds at the site included Roman pottery.

Tillys farm was the home of the Tilly family and give it name to the area now called Tillysburn the burn in the name is the Scottish name for a river or stream and there was a river called the Avon Water than ran down from the Hollywood Hills.

Victoria park was just opened to replace the Victorian pleasure park on Queens Island now given over to shipbuilding it was from Sydenham that you took a 1 penny ferry ride onto the island and it is also recorded in the papers that you could hire a summer retreat in the area to get away from the grime and foul air of Belfast to the fresh sea air of Sydenham.

As you would have passed over the railway line towards the Lough you would have been on the beach as the sea came up to the line of the railway and Victorians had bathing boxes build on the Strand at Sydenham. St Marks Church was built on the ground belonging to Edgecumbe House and at one time the area was the terminus for the old bus service, this was of course the old horse trams and it ran every one and a half hours from Belfast at a cost of 4d. There were Railway Stops at Sydenham Halt the entrance to the Victoria Park the next one was at Sydenham Station still in use the next stop was at Glenmachan Station and the last one was at William Tillys Farm or Tillysburn. This would also have served Gardner's Farm called Garnerville and also an estate called Glen Ebor and Richmond House the home of the Dunvilles the Whiskey Barons.

Finally the name Sydenham is not the original name of the area the old Town land name for the area is Ballyminster on the Lough side of the Road to Hollywood and on the Countryside the town land name was Ballymachan.

Inverary
The area where the bungalows were built was up to the end of the 2nd world war was a plot for gardeners the area under took a massive change when the need to house those who lost their homes during the blitz led to the building of the bungalows. This type of housing was meant to be temporary as there was a shortage of building materials like timber, and to many who moved into it was the first time they had lived in a three bedroom house with a bathroom and a garden front and back. The short term lasted over 30 years with the first ones in the upper part of the estate being pulled down in the mid 1970s to make way for new housing, the last of the bungalows came down in 1983 to make way for the Inverary Fold in Invernook Park.

Two of the members of our association have written a wonderful article about a family connection between our area and the first world war. They have also very kindly offered help to anyone needing advice or guidance about tracing a family war connection in France. The story begins at Laxey Villa, a home on Larkfield Road that will be familiar to many of our readers. Our Family has always believed this to be our great-grand mother Sarah Johnston, between this young married couple outside Laxey House which still stands in Larkfield road to this day. We don't know what the connection is with the Armstrong family maybe a house keeper or just a friend Sarah had a hard life, like most families at the turn of the century. She threw out her drunkard of a husband and did her best to rear all her eight children. She lived at number 2 Carew Street, Ballymacarrett. When the political situation in Ireland came about, some of her boys joined the Ulster Volunteer Force to fight against the home rule bill being enforced on Ulster Protestants. My grandfather John Johnston was already a soldier in the Royal Inniskillen Fusiliers. When war was declared three more of her boys signed up. What Sarah thought about this we don't know, but she must have been devastated. Of the four boys that went to war her youngest son Hugh was killed on June 1915 aged 19 and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial to the missing, Ypres Belgium. John was wounded 1st July 1916 the other two sons came home safely. This is a photo of Hugh & John taken 1914 before going to France. This is what started our search. I was always told that Hugh had died at the Somme and 18 years ago while travelling through that part of France I decided to look for his grave .After a long very hot day of pushing my daughter in her wheelchair up stoney lanes to little war graves cemeteries and taking lots of photos with no film in the camera [ stupid me ] our search was unsuccessful. So after a lot more research I found Hugh had died on 6th June 1915 at a place called Bellwarde near Ypres Belgium. This is Bellwarde today, a nice peaceful place Since then Carol and myself have joined the Somme Association and read books walked the fields of France and Belgium loved it so much that we spend a fair part of each year in France learning more all the time meeting people from all over the World and sometimes helping out at the Ulster tower. If anyone would like help in researching their relatives who fought and died in the Wars. If they have a grave or their name is on a memorial. I may be able to help them in their research and supply them with a Memorial scroll. Please contact the association, or leave a comment if you would like to be put in touch with John & Carol.

The following is a very brief potted history of the growth of this area of East Belfast, influenced heavily by the book Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast 1861-1986
The expansion of the two Belfast shipyards at the turn of the 20th century accelerated the growth of the Sydenham area. It led to a rapid colonisation of Ballymacarrett. Those who colonised the area became, and many would say still are, a very self-conscious community, intensely proud of its achievement and itself.
The area was only semi urbanised, with green fields and cottages; but it contained the biggest ship yard and the biggest rope works in the world.
Other ship yards in Britain invested in housing stock for their workforce. Harland & Wolff preferred to allow private developers to build the two storey brick housing so characteristic of this part of Belfast.
Most of the people who came to work and live in this area were the sons and daughters of farming people from North Down or the Lagan valley; they knew their work and the quality of their work was second to none.
In the early 1900s the informal boundary of Ballymacarett was the railway bridge commonly known as the Holywood Arches. At the time it was something of a social as well as a geographical boundary: beyond the Arches were the houses of the wealthy, the solid Victorian villas of Sydenham and Strandtown. By the end of the century, however, colonists from Ballymacarrett were intruding on the green fields of the Holywood Road and developers were building 'parlour houses' for the accomodation of clerks and upwardly-mobile artisans.
It is interesting to note that developers of the day were sympathetic to their surroundings and many of the large villas existed side by side with workers houses well in to the late 20th century. It is sad to see that many of these fine homes have since been demolished to make room for apartment buildings which architecturally
jar with the remaining traditional housing stock.
A look at a map of our area from the late 1800s shows large homes surrounded by extensive gardens. Current day visitors to the Palmerston area are often surprised to see large detached villas surrounded by rows of red brick terraced housing, it would be a real shame for the remaining mix of housing to be lost and a corner stone of the fabric of our community removed for a short term gain.