Co.Wicklow - from old postcards, paintings....

[Del.Monte]

A painting of the N11 through the Glen of the Downs in quieter times - artist unknown.

[Del.Monte]

The Bray Head Hotel was once a place of considerable luxury and considered itself worthy of commissioning a postcard by A J Burkart, London, painted by the artist Walter Hayward Young aka "Jotter". The various great railway hotels and similar establishments throughout the British Isles were also the subjects of the artist's work - but Bray!

Today, after years of operating while semi-derelict, the hotel is for sale with planning permission for 92 apartments with a guide price of €6.75 million. It's a far cry from its heyday when painted by "Jotter". Even in the Aeroviews postcard - dating from about sixty years after the painted card - it showing its age. Just amazing how it never burnt down like other derelict landmark buildings.

[Del.Monte]

Another landmark hotel in Bray - opposite the railway station - which opened in 1862 and was completely destroyed by fire in 1974. The left hand picture shows the hotel when it was a hospital for badly injured soldiers during the Great War. While the building was definitely a landmark, in its latter years it was only a shadow of itself. Fittingly, for Bray, a fragment of the building was used as the dole office in the early 1980s - Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Del.Monte]

The stunning Shelton Abbey (just north of Arklow) former seat of the Earl of Wicklow and now an 'open' prison - surely a heritage gem that should be put to better use?



A couple of interesting aerial views of Shelton Abbey here: https://irishpostcards.wordpress.com/aerial-cards/ from a time when it briefly operated as an hotel.