My wife's ancestors - Fitzwilliam - Contents

Mount Merrion House - The E Avenue

The E Avenue of Mount Merrion.
Now Sycamore Crescent.

The E Avenue, Mount Merrion, on 1887 to 1913 map.

"Mount Merrion, the Irish seat of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, can compare in the beauty of its demesne with many of the great places in England, and has few rivals in Ireland. Entering by the high gates on the road from Dublin to Stillorgan, which face the broad avenue from Blackrock, a straight drive with wide borders of closely cut grass, and rows of lofty elms on either side, leads to the house, which is covered with creepers." [Ball, vol.2, 1903]

"A double avenue of beech trees shades the roadway which runs, straight as a rule, for a full quarter of a mile to the entrance gates on the Stillorgan road. This roadway, whose immaculate pebbled surface was raked daily, had a broad border of century old shaven turf, the pride of the Scottish gardener" [Wilkinson, 1925].

Sycamore Crescent, looking uphill to the church, showing the old gates.
Drawing by J. O'Sullivan, 1925.
Printed in [Mount Merrion Estates, 1925-26].

The old E Avenue (now "Sycamore Crescent") leading up to Mount Merrion House.
Click to rotate and move.
From Google Street View.

The old E Avenue (now "Sycamore Crescent") leading up to Mount Merrion House.
In 1956 a grand Catholic church almost symbolically displaced the old Anglo-Irish house at the top. The new church is not actually built on the site of any of the old buildings though, and 2 blocks survive up there beside the church.
Photo 2012. See full size and other shot.

The old E Avenue. Photo 1999.

The Willow Park gates

The fine stone gates that once stood at the Stillorgan Road entrance to Mount Merrion still exist.
They are now the gates of Willow Park school on the Blackrock Road.
In 1925, Blackrock College purchased Willow Park house (see 1887 to 1913 map) and opened it as a preparatory school.
They installed the Mount Merrion gates c.1926, removed from the sold-off Mt Merrion estate.
See Google street view.

The old Mount Merrion gates removed to the entrance of Willow Park school.
Photo 2013. See full size and other shot and other shot.

View from Willow Park looking out.
Photo 2013. See full size and other shot.

The bottom of Mount Merrion Avenue

In the 18th century, there were gates at the bottom of Mount Merrion Avenue.
So the entire 1-mile length of Mount Merrion Avenue formed a drive up to Mount Merrion House.

The bottom of Mt Merrion Ave.
Detail of Pat Roe's map of 1774.
See full map.
From Mount Merrion 300. Used with permission.

The new church

The gap at the top of the avenue has been filled by the massive new Catholic church (built 1956), set a little further back up the hill. The middle of the avenue is now devoted to its car park. See street view.

The new church. Photo 2010.
See full size. From here.

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