Memories of the Baynes' Hill area of Castlebar before houses

by Auld Stock

In the early 1940s, Sonny Patterson and his sister Mary lived on the Newport Road, Castlebar, close to where the entrance to Marian Row is now located.

At the time the land in the area was owned by the Quinn family.

The Pattersons had two fierce greyhounds, Spit and Spot, which guarded the entrance to their residence.

Jimmy ‘Pop’ Deane compared them to the Hounds of the Baskervilles in Conan Doyle’s famous story. It was ‘Pop’ who gave the greyhounds their name.

‘Pop’ Deane came to Castlebar from Brixton, London, and initially worked in the Convent of Mercy before joining the staff of Castlebar bacon factory where he spent close on sixty years.

When Marian Row and St. Bridget’s Crescent were built in the early 1950s a large tract of land was made available on which several housing estates were built in later years.

The Sheridan family, Linenhall Street, owned land opposite St. Bridget’s Crescent.

View Point was built in an area formerly known as Baynes’ Hill.

I remember Dónal and Henry Downes, Christy and Johnny McDonnell, Seán O’Malley, Tommy Moran and Finn Mongey tobogganing on Baynes’ Hill during the great snowfall of 1947. All lived in Blackfort

I digress for a moment to mention the name Sidney Glass, who also lived with his family in Blackfort.

The Glass family came to Castlebar from Eastern Europe and Sidney’s father worked in the hat factory.

Sidney was a classmate of mine in the old Tech in Newtown, an exceptionally bright student.

Well over a century ago Baynes’ Hill was known as Tilbury.

Perhaps Tilbury was a landowner name in the area.

There is the famous Tilbury docks in London which is the principal container harbour of the Port of London.