Working on Woodlawn Estate

Michael Daly recalls his father working on Woodlawn Estate

Miss Grace at Woodlawn, c.1930s
Courtesy of Roderick Ashtown

My father did farm work, mainly, on the Woodlawn Estate. He worked for Gerald Trench, Bob Trench, Derek in later years. He worked also with Dudley Mitchell at the building. Dudley was the local builder and he was the man who was building the bungalows and the few houses that were put up. My father found Woodlawn Estate a good place to work because there was a land steward there and he was good to the men that were working and they were always sure of their wages. He was pretty happy all the years he was there. They had eight to six, now, I suppose, fairly long hours. But it brought him in a wage that sent us to secondary school and he was grateful to have it back in the 60’s.

Anyone for tennis?

They used to have good quality stock on Woodlawn estate alright and I remember they built a tennis court there during my father’s time. Derek Trench built the tennis court and two fellas came from England and did it.  They did a lovely job. They did it manually with shovels and rollers. They didn’t have mechanisation or diggers at that stage. I think it’s still there. My father enjoyed his time there and he retired out of it in 1967.

The house I’m living in now was a Woodlawn Estate house. It’s similar to Willie Lynskey’s house. They were both the same type of house. I’d say they were all built by the Ashtown family. So it’s pretty old, this house. It’s not too bad, sure. It could do with a bit of paint now maybe. Maybe next year I’ll get round to it again.

This page was added on 09/02/2016.

Comments about this page

  • This is very interesting about our Father’s family

    By Kathleen Marshall (14/07/2019)
  • My grandmother, Charlotte Kelly, was 1 of 10 children born to Joseph and Charlotte Kelly whom were servants for Woodlawn house in the early 1900’s. They lived in house #3 along with an aunt, Mary Kelly and 2 servants, Kate Kelly, aged 20 and Tom Murphy aged 40 at the time of the 1901 census. Interesting to see where they lived and worked over a century ago.

    By Sheila Watson (24/08/2016)
  • This article has brought back lots of memories for me. I can well remember most things that were happening when I was going to the National School in Woodlawn. Christy Daly worked for my Dad, Dudley Mitchell; he always had the highest regard for Christy. In fact Dad would describe him as a good workman and if I remember correctly he paid him the princely sum of five pounds a week. I used to see the stubs from the cheque book that he used to use at the time. My dad kept all his paper work in a big cupboard under the window in the dining room. In those days the working week was Monday to Friday and a half day on Saturday, overtime was not even heard of then.

    By Ambrose Mitchell (10/06/2016)
  • What a great web site! Well done to all who contributed… Brid.

    By Brid Mercer (20/05/2016)

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