The Cottage In The Woods

Glen Of The Downs by Robert French. Colourised by GG.

nce Brendan Hayden started sending through parts of the 100-year-old Bellevue Woods family jigsaw, it didn’t take long before it all went Full Zapruder.

Take, for starters, that beautiful Robert French shot of the Glen Of The Downs above.

Up to the top left of the big tree, there’s clearly a building, with a roof. Something that is very much missing from the Octagon banquet house today.

And then there’s the structure in the shot to the left here, taken over 100 years ago, looking out over the Delgany Golf Club, towards Blackberry Lane and taken – most likely by French again – from Cherry’s Brow.

Bradshaw cottage 1920s

That, young Brendan informs us, is the Turkish tent that the La Touche family at Bellevue House liked to spend the occasional sunny afternoon in. When they were bored with the view and fake panthers at the Octagon. And the other 299 acres they lauded over around here.

Brendan has long been fascinated by this particular purple patch of local history, given that his mother, the late May Hayden, was one of the Bradshaws who grew up in the cottage in Bellevue Woods, a family home that would later be turned into a sheltered rest for hikers.

Brendan at the Turkish tent site 2017

“I was listening to your interview with John McDonald, and was inspired to get in touch,” explains Brendan. “I believe the tunnel he refers to is the one situated about 80 or so yards north east of the ice house, which is on the other side of the path from the Octagon, on the way to Bellevue House. I can only imagine this larger tunnel was used for storage, leading out as it does to the field above the house.”

Brendan has spent many a holiday coming home from Watford, each time exploring his family’s Glen Of The Downs roots.

“The Bradshaws moved into the cottage in 1912/13, and my uncle Tom and his family were the last occupants, being re-housed by the council in the 1960s. I attach a photo here – taken in 1915 or early 1916 – of my grandmother, Elizabeth Bradshaw nee Ivory, together with her son Thomas (born 1909) alongside daughters May (my mother, born 1909), Maud (born 1914) and Lizzi (born 1911).”

Tragically, Lizzi would come to a tragic end, falling off a makeshift swing outside the family home, never regaining consciousness before dying a couple of days later at home.

Bradshaw cottage 1970

“Her father Edward – known as The Gunner – was a member of the then Wicklow Artillery Reserve,” says Brendan, “and was at the time serving on Salisbury Plain, Hampshire, instructing on large artillery. On being informed of his daughter’s accident, he made his way home but was too late as Lizzi had died just some hours beforehand. Lizzi is buried in the family plot in St Patrick’s graveyard in Kilquade.”

Her father, Edward, died in 1939, with Tom taking over the house and marrying soon after, getting a job with the Forestry as his mother retired to a house in the Downs. By the end of the 1960s, the family cottage was no more…

You can find out more with another Bradshaw relative, Shay Clear, about the Octagon here and Bellevue House over here. Brendan’s full pics gallery here.