Dundrum/Sandyford 1948

Naughtical

There is a strange landscape feature in this aerial photograph of Dundrum/Sandyford Road area taken in 1948 by Aerofilms Ltd. It looks like a cleared strip, maybe 20m wide, running straight through the countryside (definitely not natural)

see britainfromabove.org.uk/image/xaw019339 and adjoining photos

Starting near Gortmore House it runs dead straight southwards for about 1km then turns left around present day Kilcross towards Sandyford village and loops up to where the Central Bank mint is now.

Does anyone know what it was ? (hardly an airstrip with all those trees around...)

Peregrinus

Couldn't be an airstrip, not only because of the trees but because there's a bloody big bend in the middle, and in any case I'm confident there was never anything like an airstrip in the vicinity. It looks almost like preliminary work for a railway, but there has never been a railway there or any proposal for one. could it be an area that was cleared to lay a pipeline or similar?

kildarejohn

Could the feature be anything to do with "Aiken's Windmill" which was I think near this location?

Peregrinus

Aiken's windmill was a small affair, intended to supply domestic lighting to his own house. I don't see how something like what we see in the picture could possibly be connected with it.

kildarejohn

Peregrinus wrote: »

Aiken's windmill was a small affair, intended to supply domestic lighting to his own house.

The windmill was a fairly wild guess.
I had a look at the maps/aerial photos on osi.ie, and it is possible to match the fields shown on 1948 photo to the current day. The line of the cutting seems to be aiming exactly towards what is now a small covered reservoir - grid ref 718047,725728 on OSI. So assuming that reservoir was built in the 1940's, then the cutting would have been for a water pipe.

Naughtical

Great ideas Peregrinus and kildarejohn. I see where you are aiming at kildarejohn, that reservoir is close to the route of the 'strip' but I too plotted its track onto the osi.ie maps, especially the Historic 25", which shows the field patterns and I reckon that it passed a bit more northerly of the modern reservoir location, as if heading for Sandyford church but then curves up at 718179,725844 short of meeting the Sandyford Road.

The osi.ie site is very useful, by plotting the track of the strip on the Historic 25" and fading into current street map or Ortho views I can see that there is no part of the strip which has not been built over or levelled since. Indeed the M50 cuts right through it! As a result no present day physical evidence is available so I guess we have to rely on local knowledge or historical society to help solve this intriguing mystery...