The old Ballynafeigh Road (now the Ravenhill) was until 1815 Ballynafeigh's only road link with Belfast, and indeed in later years must have been considered by 'the powers that be' the area for further development for the ever spreading city of Belfast, for the Ravenhill Road had a tram service before the Ormeau Road. The Ormeau Road in those days was better known as the 'new' Ballynafeigh Road.

Passing Ormeau Park golf course one is reminded of wartime when every inch of land that could be used for animal husbandry was pressed into service. The Government Ministry concerned decreed that the golf course would serve as a temporary shelter for flocks of sheep prior to being herded into the abattoir for slaughter, or to the docks for shipment to England. The Golf Club members, frustrated by the 'litter' left on the greens, protested to the Government about the messy state of the ground; back came the reply that if complaints of this sort continued the golfers would have to stop playing. The war effort was paramount.

The second Marquess of Donegall who owned virtually all of the land on which Belfast was built, together with large tracts in Co. Antrim, decided that a 'country residence' was required as a family seat. Ormeau Park became the home of the Donegall family in 1807 when they moved into what was known as Ormeau Cottage. Ormeau House was built in the early 1820's by William Morrison in Tudor revival style on the site of Ormeau Cottage to accommodate the every growing household. The main entrance to this estate was from the Ravenhill Road; later the Ormeau Road entrance was opened and became known as the Marquess's Gate.

The second Marquess lived here until his death in 1844. Lord Donegall was a generous man, who was also an imprudent gambler. On his death debts were revealed totalling £400,000. When one considers that the year was 1844 the sum seems apalling. As a result much of the land had to be sold. Belfast Corporation acquired the Ormeau estate as a public park and alloted portions of it for building purposes. The next occupant was Thomas Verner, the last Sovereign of Belfast.

The contents of the cottage were auctioned in1857. The land itself was farmed up until the 1860's when it was turned over to grazing. The Park the oldest and largest municipal park in Belfast, was declared open for public use on 15th April 1871. The Golf Course was opened in 1893. During the early years of the family's tenancy the Marquess's wife was to suffer some insults to her carriage and person on her trips to Belfast via the lower Ravenhill Road from the residents of the Lagan village, which occupied the area roughly from Ravenhill Post Office to the Albert Bridge on the left hand side of the road. The situation became so intolerable that the Marquess ordered a new road built for his wife to avoid the Lagan village. Many hundreds of trees were felled for this road. It joined the Ravenhill to the Woodstock Road.

The Donegall's country estate was in those days somewhat larger than the present limits of Ormeau Park. It then included the area occupied by North and South Parades, indeed part of the old wall can still be seen if one looks across the Ormeau Road from Rushfield Avenue at the entry dividing South Parade from the old Ulster Cricket Grounds.

Walking along the lower embankment toward the present day Ormeau Bridge and remembering that prior to the 1920's there would have been no embankment road at this location to walk on (the embankment roads were built during the 1920's as part of the outdoor relief scheme for the unemployed who received little more for their labours than grocery vouchers), one would have trodden grassy banks of a river almost twice as wide as it is today. The river Lagan's history goes back into the mists of time. It was even known to the ancient Greeks as the Vinderous (meaning a link between valley and lough).

It is interesting to note that to this day Cooke Centenary church occupies a site on the Ormeau Road with no postal number, the full address being Ormeau Park, Belfast.

Proceeding further along the embankment and looking across the Lagan towards the gas works (now partly demolished) one would have been gazing at Hamilton's Meadows which extended along the right hand side of the Ormeau Road to the Blackstaff river at Ormeau Avenue. Mr Hamilton had problems with tresspassers who in fair weather gathered in crowds to enjoy bathing off a sandbar which lay at the junction of the Lagan and Blackstaff rivers. These people broke down his fences so often that he had several cart loads of broken glass dumped on the sandbank and published a disclaimer in the Newsletter regarding any liability on his part for damages. It is difficult to believe, looking at the foul mess this location is today, that it should have provided such an attraction to the children of Belfast in 1757.

Five hundred years ago this Blackstaff river was the object of a remarkable prophecy by a gentleman named Terence Dorney:

"Toe my goode Maisters Syrre Phalym O'Shane - the dayes shall komme whenne ye stremme nowe called black shall be blacke yndeede, whene ye smelle of it shalle be so dystresfullie bade thatte ye mene of ye greate sytie heretoe grove shalle caise ye river to be covered uppe,, for ye fyshese shall all be dede, and ye stremme shalle not turne annye wheeles, and this shalle be in ye dayes when ye shyppes shall be mayde withouten annye wood, and ye dwellings of ye folke shafle be lightenedde withouten annye candelles''.

All too true. Experts a few years ago who attempted to measure the density of the pollution of the river found it in such a bad state that no accurate reading could be made. The Blackstaff, like the Lagan, once so clean and abundant with fish, had come down to the level of an underground sewer.

The site of the old gas works, I have learned recently, will have to be excavated to a depth of seven feet before it can be put to any use, because of pollution from toxic waste. No cattle graze there now. How we have spoiled the fair land.

Further along the river we arrive facing Balfour Avenue, the site of the old ferryboat crossing. This ferry operated for many years. It is recorded as far back as 1850, and was certainly still in operation up until the 1914 war when no fewer than three boats were providing a river crossing service at one penny per trip. There were slatted board walks at either bank in order to save the ladies' long dresses and shoes from being soiled in the mud.

From the reminiscences of Paul Henry 1876-1958 we learn of the rapidly changing scenes in South Belfast. In the 1880s he refers to a walk on the Ormeau Road with his brothers: after they had crossed the Ormeau Bridge and were about to enter the Ormeau Park, "We crossed a rustic style and entered a wood full of magnificent beech trees, where we gathered bunches of wild hyacinths (bluebells).

We then went through the woods to look at the river Lagan, and thought how evil smelling were its waters although boys were bathing from the banks". Paul Henry also tells us that it was on this occasion that he saw for the last time in his life a man ploughing in this area with a slow moving team of oxen, "with the rooks crilling and circling overhead as they quarrelled over the Leatherjackets turned up by the plough''.

Now where might this location have been? If we discard the theory of Parkland being ploughed up after 1865 there were only two farmers left in Ballynafeigh. One was McDowell's farm, which was part of what is now Botanic Gardens; the other Carlan's farm, located roughly between the junction of the Ormeau and Ravenhill Roads on one side with the Lagan on the other. Carlan's would seem to have been the more likely.

The Ormeau Bridge itself is a subject for some speculation. Work was commenced on this, the first direct link with Belfast city, in the year 1815; whether it was actually completed in the same year is debatable. Other accounts vary between 1818 and 1822. What is certain is that it was later declared too dangerous for public use - was demolished and a second bridge constructed and opened in 1863. Even the second bridge presented problems for in 1862 a high tide swept away half the uncompleted structure, which had to be rebuilt. Obviously precision engineering was not the fine art it is today.

A scarce little book "Robert Workman of Newtownbreda'' gives us an insight into the construction of the bridge. It is recorded that Mr Workman and his wife Sarah, having no access from where they lived at Queen's Elms, University Road, to their church at Newtownbreda (Presbyterian) save by walking via Malone Road and Shaw's Bridge, or via Belfast to cross the Albert Bridge and hence by Ravenhill Road, chose to clamber across the coffer dam twice each Sunday to worship. This coffer dam caved in at one stage of the construction, but luckily no life was lost.

Readers will recollect, as I do, the low broad stone wall which faced the Marquess's Gate (lower entrance to Ormeau Park on the Ormeau Road) and which was later replaced by the brick wall and railings which now surround the Public Library. Whether they realised it or not the remnant of wall they saw was the last piece remaining of the first bridge constructed across the Lagan at Ormeau.

(Verse two of that lovely old poem 'The Bridge at Ormeau', writen by a Mr John Dunbar, illustrates beautifully the days and location of Ballynafeigh's old Lammas Fair).

I wonder if you, like the writer, can recall the days of Miss Mackle's shop on the left hand side of the bridge, Ballynafeigh end, which was unique insomuch, as, while Miss Mackle paid rates and rent, she paid no ground rent because the shop did not occupy any ground. The shop, a long, single storied, green, wooden building with a black tar felt roof faced on to the embankment footpath and was supported over the embankment slope by huge timber beams. Later it was removed to the site of the Ormeau Library, which was then just a small green field with a beaten earth track through the middle as a short cut from the bridge to Baroda Street. The writer as a small boy (1930s) was fortunate enough to be on location the day the shop was moved to its new site. This was achieved by means of long wooden rollers placed underneath the shop to literally haul it across the road by a large team of Corporation workmen with the use of strong ropes.

In the early 1800s the area now bounded by the Ormeau Bridge, Lagan and King's Bridge, Sunnyside Street, Ava Street and the Ormeau Road was kept as a 'rough shoot' for the guests of the Marquess of Donegall. This area also contained a small racecourse. The shoot and course can be identified on the 1835 Ordanance Survey map. Beyond them lay some fallow grassland called the brick fields. These were the Haypark Brick Works and together with a few other (brick) fields in the area must have produced a very large quantity of the bricks for the construction of the city of Belfast and the Ballynafeigh area as the clay deposits were of very high quality.

The writer can recall the huge stone-built kiln and storage building at the rear of Deramore Gardens on the riverside with the large flooded dam on the lower slopes nearer the Lagan. It is somewhat ironic that the brick manufacturers should have missed out on what I was reliably informed was the best quality clay pit in the whole area; they were too late, Rosario School was built on top of it.

If one walks down from the site of the old brick works to the edge of the Lagan, looking across the river to the Commercial Boat Club (best viewed from Stranmillis), one will notice, though fenced in and badly overgrown, the small quay which was built at the water's edge where the barges tied up in readiness to transport their cargoes of bricks to Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland.

The weather must have been much colder then for the writer can recall quite a few occasions during the winters of the 1930s crossing the Lagan on foot between the Ormeau and King's Bridges as it was frozen solid from bank to bank. Indeed on many occasions the lives of the large flocks of swans which lived on the river were saved only by the efforts of the local residents who would venture out in the evening to break the ice and feed the birds which were quite literally starving to death.

The river in the early fifties in the Ballynafeigh area became so polluted that it could no longer support wild birds, and the Lagan swim which took place in June each summer was discontinued after several swimmers were pulled unconscious from the water, overcome by fumes. Sadly the days are gone when the brilliantly coloured kingfishers frequented the reed beds at the water's edge near the First Locks tennis courts. At this point on the upper embankment road progress into Annadale Avenue would have been impossible as the road, such as it was, was blocked with massive iron gates. Annadale Avenue was in the early and mid 18&0s like Hampton Park, a semi-private residential area, and although at a later stage the Corporation used the end ofAnnadale on the right hand side towards the river as a dump, this has since all been covered with soil, planted with trees and converted into heathland, together with the area to the rear of Hampton Park, reaching also down to the river's edge at the old Belvoir Wall. All this area is still open to the public and a more delightful walk on a summer's day would be hard to visualise.

Before leaving the Ballynafeigh stretch of the Lagan mention must be made of Molly Ward's Tavern which was sited close to the old timber weir above the First Locks on the present day location of the tennis courts.

Molly Ward's Tavern was a well known and frequented place of relaxation for the citizens of Ballynafeigh and indeed of Belfast as well. During the eighteenth century access was easy as small craft of all descriptions could be hired from as far away as Belfast's Long Bridge (now Queen's Bridge). Food and drink were plentiful in what must have been then the most beautiful of surroundings. The area' s popularity in a sense became its own undoing. This happened through the United Irishmen finding it an ideal meeting place, away from the Crown authorities' prying eyes and ears and it was frequented by such well-known historical figures as Wolf Tone, Henry Joy McCracken, Russell, Nielson and McCabe.

The principles of the United Irishmen enjoyed much public sympathy in those days, Belfast being then one of the most republican cities in Ireland. From meetings there it was only a short step to the smuggling of powder and arms in small pleasure craft to Molly Ward's from where it was distributed to other parts of the countryside. The place and its visitors eventually came under the suspicion of the authorities who launched a raiding party under the command of Major Fox to search the place. The local people got wind of the raid and John and Molly Ward were warned. Gunpowder, pikes and all printed material were consigned to the river, save one crock of gunpowder which had been overlooked. The story goes that Molly, discovering this while the soldiers were still on the premises, quickly placed it by the fire (a somewhat risky move) threw some clothes over it and placed her mother-in-law on top with a grand child on her knee, and throughout the search it remained undetected. The only legally held firearm discovered was John's musket kept for protection of the weir bridge. However suspicion seemed to be enough, the Wards lost their licence as a house of entertainment and never regained it. Ballynafeigh in the 1790s could not have been described as the quietest of places.

Annadale Avenue enjoys its own little niche in history. The area was called after Anna Hill, mother of the first Duke of Wellington, who herself lived in a Georgian house built on the site of the Avenue and unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1921. On the subject of this family, it is also interesting to note that Lady Middleton, the Duke of Wellington's grandmother, built at her own expense, in 1737, the present Parish Church of Knockbreda. At this point I would appeal to any reader who could assist me in completing a little story. If you are familiar with a cul-de-sac off Annadale Avenue called Mornington prior to the development of a small modern housing estate), you may recall a very old house which was situated on the right hand side at the end of a short lane. I can recall as a child my father lifting me up to see the old man in his garden on the other side of the hedge. The "old man" was a full, lifelike figure of a rather ugly old man. I cannot remember whether the statue was of stone or bronze, but it terrified me. I recall learning later that it was a monument to someone's gardener. I know nothing more than this but there has to be a story in there somewhere.

On the Ormeau Road at this point, right up until the late 1890s one would have seen only a vista of trees, hedgerows and farms. The population woul dhave been very sparse and widespread. It is recorded in 1862 that Newtownbreda Presbyterian Church (then occupying a building next to where the present church stands) had a congregation of some sixty families, a good many of whom would have been farmers. Indeed it would be appropriate to use the words of the late Rev. Robert Workman, whose ordination into the church took place on 16th April, 1862, in which he describes the manse which faced the Post Office across the road:

"I remember the extraordinary stillness that surrounded us the first evening when we retired to rest after the stir of Belfast. It was awesome to look out through the uncurtained windows to the starry sky, no cart or traveller moved upon the road and all was silence. When we looked westward there was nothing to hide the view of the Black Mountain. Rosetta House in its woods and shrubberies hid the town. Knockbreda Rectory was the only house visible southward''.

The present church, built in 1892 was successor to the old building already mentioned which had been built to house the small congregation formed in the area forty years earlier, when their first clergyman, the Rev Andrew Crawford, is recorded as having preached to his congregation in a pulpit built of sods.

Opposite the church, almost at the junction of the Ormeau and Ravenhill Roads, stand Rosetta Cottages, better known in the old days as Saddlers' Row. These cottages are without doubt the oldest buildings still standing in Ballynafeigh, built about 1800, their appearance has altered little save for the absence of the original half-doors.

These cottages, in the old days, housed saddlers and their families. An ideal site it was, as there was a toll house where the flower bed on the roundabout now is, at which point a levy was charged on traffic using the road. Queues would develop and it was the perfect opportunity for the farmers to call at the cottages, and new harness of every description would be bought or ordered, while old harness could be left for repair on the inward journey and collected on the way home.

Away to the rear of the Saddlers' Row stretched Mr Carolan's farm including part of the Good Shepherd Convent (which part he was later to rent to the church). Some time after he sold it to the Catholic church he was found drowned in one of his own ditches (lest the reader jump to conclusions the two events were totally unrelated). At the junctionof the two roads stood nine whitewashed cottages, later pulled down when Nazareth House was extended .

At the Carolan Road entrance on the Ormeau Road (now incorporated in the Good Shepherd Convent) stood Locust Lodge, built in the 1830s and the home of the Fitzpatrick family, well known builders in the area, who built St Jude's school facing the Curzon Cinema in 1889 (now sadly demolished). The family were early prominent members of St. Jude's Church and built at their own expense the tower and belfry of the church.

About 200 yards to the west of Locust Lodge stood Anna's thatched cottage (estimated site), on the back lane running between Carolan Road and Ailesbury Road built early 1800s).

On the road opposite the Convent stands Nazareth House (a home for the elderly) while below that is the Holy Rosary Chapel built of Scrabe stone and opened for worship on October 9th, 1898.

The Chapel, together with Rosario Schools in Sunnyside Street, were built through the tireless efforts of the Very Rev. Robert Crickard, P.P., the first Parish Priest in the perish of Ballynafeigh, formerly under the jurisdiction of St Malachy's parish. The writer, a committed Presbyterian, seldom looks at the exterior of the Chapel without experiencing a feeling of warm affection for the many of yesteryear who worshipped within.

Let me briefly explain. During the l920s and early thirties my late grandfather David R. Campbell BL, a barrister, successfully defended, amongst others, some members of the parish in the courts. As an individual he was always known as a kindly charitable person. In 1933 I was ill to the point of death, my grandfather asked for their prayers. My mother could only guess at the number of prayers said and candles lit on my behalf. My affection is genuine, I am alive and well today. From below the Chapel, until one reaches St Jude's Church, stood Rose Cottages. They must have looked pretty with their thatched roofs and spring wells from which their water was drawn.

The foundation stone of St. Jude's Church was laid in 1871 and the building opened for worship in August, 1873. The church had to be enlarged twice in the following twenty years owing to the growth of population in the area. Scrabe sandstone and Bath stone were both incorporated in the beautiful construction. Try as I might I have been unable todiscover why they called the church after St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes!! Was their cause a fainthearted one? Or was some impish sense of humour at play?

Happily due to the untiring efforts of the Rev. John Bristow, prime mover for the foundation of the church, and all his successors right up to the Rev. William Moore today, the Church of Ireland' s foundation has proved to be everything but a 'lost cause'. Still the mystery lingers. Why was it licensed for public worship four months before it was consecrated?

Opposite St. Jude's stood Auburn Villas twolarge houses of the Victorian era ocupied by Jas. Donnan, a wholesale warehouseman, and G.C. Robinson. Prior to their destruction, and I use the word deliberately, for we Ulster folk show a painful lack of awareness when it comes to preserving buildings of real architectural interest, the premises were used as a convalescent home, after which the Rosario Youth Club premises were erected on the site. I wonder whatever became of the horse watering trough which stood outside the perimeter wall of St. Jude's Church.

Methodists were among the early residents of Ballynafeigh. They had a Meeting House in the area as early as 1840; they also had a school house which occupied part of the Curzon Cinema site until the early 1900s. Prior to this, up until 1892, a private school occupied the same site and was supervised by Mr and Mrs T J Farrett.

The present Methodist Church, erected in 1898 (with twin spires which were later removed as they were considered dangerous), was described as a 'conglomerate' of different styles. True, yet it is an unusual and attractive building. A smaller church had previously occupied the site. To the rear of the church stand the now closed Methodist schools erected about 1906.

Below the Methodist Church at 453 stood theold Ballynafeigh Police Barracks at one time claimed to be the last house in the town before reaching green fields. At 451 was the Red Lion Public House with its attractive iron rings in its walls for tethering horses. That was before the terrorists destroyed it like so many other sites. Built in 1870 the old building must have seen many changes. If one turns left at this point into Sunnyside Street after about 200 yards one will reach what is believed to have been the site of an old Irish village. Except for its existence at someearly date in the past nothing else is known about it.

Across the road on the site of the Errigal Inn stood Black's Inn with its apple orchard, again with tethering rings in the outer walls. Originally built as a private residence in 1845 by James Black, it was converted to a public house by his brother Hugh and on his demise was managed by his daughter.

This hostelry was noted for its considerable "turn-over" in best stout, which I suppose is not surprising if there is any truth in the story that many farmers who stopped off there on the way home from Belfast market found that their horses and donkeys showed a marked preference for the 'stuff as opposedto ordinry drinking water!

Further down the road (roughly on the site of Jameson St) stood Retreat Lodge (1858) home of Samuel Glenn, tax collector. Below this, on the site of the Curzon Cinema, was "Wooden Row", a block of wooden shops which in the 1920s housed the followinn bu~inesses: at 250, J. Milligan, painter and decorator; 252, Ormeau Laundry; 254, Miss Crawford, milliner; 256, A. Starret, bookmaker; T S Douglas, engineer, at 258; Martin Bell's public house, still known as the Pavilion Bar, occupies site 248. The Wooden Row was destroyed by fire in the early 1930s.

Across the road at the site of Eastwood's Bookmakers was Simpson' s Lane, with its sole inhabitant a deaf mute who lived alone in a single, thatched, stone cottage. Below Lavery's grocery shop, on the same side, was St. Jude's School, built as a gift to the area on behalf of the Fitzpatrick family.

Closed for many years as surplus to the educational requirements of the area, it was finally demolished. I could tell many tales about this school in which I was enrolled in 1935, starting my education with chalk and slate, but I will confine myself to one little incident I have never forgotten. The date was November Ilth, Armistice Day. The bell sounded for the two minutes' silence. I happened to be standing at an upstairs window facing on to the Ormeau Road and I opened my eyes for a 'peek'. I can see that sight still, the tramcars and all traffic had stopped, the pedestrian shoppers were all at a standstill with heads bowed. We have come a long way since then but it is difficult to avoid the thought that we have lost something valuable in our progress.

Below the school was another very old building which housed Miss Woods' sweet shop on the ground floor, the ground floor being about four feet below the level of the pavement with a curving stonestaircase leading from the street. It was part of the McChesney houses.

Below Haywood Avenue stands Ballynafeigh Orange Hall built in 1887. Minute Books from the 1880s, held in the Hall, show a surprising number of members, professionally listed, as farmers, farm labourers, game keepers and estate workers, which does illustrate the comparatively late development of the area as part of Belfast.

Facing the Hall, the old Ulster Cricket Club Grounds have their own little claim to history. The original site of this club was to the rear of Stewart's Wine Barrel Off-Licence at the corner of Deramore Avenue. It covered what is now Deramore Avenue, Kimberly Street and Walmer Street on what was then a pleasant, wooded parkland. It was on their new ground opposite Ballynafeigh Orange Hall, to which they moved during the 1870s, that the first football match played under Association Rules in Ireland took place. This was on October 25th, 1878.

It is also interesting to note that Dunplop's invention, the pneumatic tyre, was first tested on these grounds.

Further down on the right hand side of the road, stood two rows of two storey cottages, 262-272 and 234-242. Recently demolished, these houses were built during the 1840s to house the Marquess of Donegall's estate workers. It was sad to see another piece of Bailynafeigh history vanish. Their little 'postage stamp' gardens were such admired in the summer time as they were always a blaze of colour, profuse with roses and gladioli. The residents took great pride in them. Indeed more than flowers were grown there as it is believed that a Mr Johnston reared pigs in a piggery on some spare ground beside his house in the 1920s. The above numbers are new, following the renumbering of properties on the Ormeau Road in 1936.

Below these properties, on the same side of the road, resided Dr Porter, whom I remember well from childhood. In 1938 I was knocked down outside his front door by a car which left me bleeding profusely from a nasty gash on my left temple. I was carried into the surgery and revived with a sponge full of freezing water plus smelling salts, at which stage, with my head firmly held down on his desk top 1 was stitched up. Nothing unusual in that, except that the stitches were of copper wire. Surgeries were just that in olden days, not the consulting rooms they are today. Then scalpels were in constant use, removing all forms of surface growth, with frequent use of the lance to clean everything from an abcess to suppuration of various dimensions. Even the local chemist, in addition to selling barley sugar and cinnamon sticks, was quite capable of tape stitching wounds in an emergency.

Across the road at Downings' hardware shop with its slanting stone-paved entrance through two narrow swing doors one entered what was truly Ballynafeigh' s last remaining country general hardware store. A business run by that tireless man and wife team Edward and Elizabeth Downing. A twelve hour day every working day meant nothing to them, despite the cares of a family and a home in South Parade to look after. One could have bought anything from a packet of pins to a coffin on the premises. The ground floor (of rough timber) contained every conceivable item of hardware and ironmongery, plus on the lefthand side inside the door a vast array of newspapers, magazines and comics.

No matter what one had on order they could go through this mountain of newsprint and find one's copy in seconds.

Various types of it were sold here, and charging of acid batteries for running one's radio set was a very welcome service for the area. Hurricane lamps, tools of all descriptions, right down to iron griddles were much in evidence, and the tub which stood on the right hand side of the shop at the foot of the narrow staircase contained all manner of walking sticks and canes of differing lengths, including whipping canes with round handles, sold for administering swift justice to mischievous children!!

On the first floor all types of delph and china were sold. The floor above housed Adam Turner, Complete Funeral Furnisher.

I can see the Downings yet, Elizabeth tall and stately with grey hair and fine gold rimmed glasses, and Edward in his tan tweed suit and plus-four trousers with matching woollen socks, brown shoes and magnificent moustache. As a Justice of the Peace and a business man he was quite a commanding figure .

Downing Memorial Park, home of Shaftesbury Bowling Club in Annadale Avenue, was so named in their memory. What lovely people they were.

Just below Downings' store stood love's Ladies Drapery Store. The interior of these premises was the very essence of the Victorian era, with massive solid oak counters, old gas light fittings, shelves of little drawers containing ail manner of accessories,from spools to broad white elastic; overhead the parcelling cord hung from spools suspended from the ceiling. Every year, before Christmas, this store displayed a beautifully dressed doll in the window.

It was a prize to the owner of the winning ticket chosen at a Christmas draw. Ballot tickets were given to all purchasers in the run up Christmas. It was not unusual to see Love's window gazed at on cold, frosty days by little girls, with their noses pressed to the cold glass, with longing and hope in their hearts, for only one dream was realised each year.

The Deramore Arms public house, believed to have been originally called the Park Tavern, situated at the Ormeau Road/Deramore Avenue junction, was sited to the front of the Ulster Cricket Club, which had occupied this site from 1872 for a short while.

Next door was McCormack's fruit anti vegetable shop. In the thirties no busier shop could be found on the Road. Alfie McCormack, when not busy, which wasn't often, could be found on warm sunny rlavs at the door with his thumbs tucked in the armholes of his waistcoat, passing the time with anyo~e and everyone. They used to say of Ballynafeigh folks that "if Alfie didn't know them they weren't worth knowing"! Allie's two sisters ran the confectionery and tobacconist next door; they were two old dears, always having perfect manners. I can see them yet with their old fashioned lace cuffs and Frills.

I wonder if any readers can recall the Italian who would arrive most days, on the stroke of twelve, at the tram stop next door to McCormack's, outside Graham's butcher's shop with his beautifully dressed tame monkey. He was an organ grinder and as he turned the handle the monkey collected the money in a little leather pouch. Sadly he, like so many of his colleagues, perished during the war when the building in which he slept and stored the organ received a direct hit from a German bomb. Belfast lost some of its colour with their passing.

Glen's paper shop was another favourite haunt each Monday morning to get the Dandy or Beane comic, provided one had the penny to buy it. Some weeks you missed out: money was very scarce indeed.

Swears and Newells, another very old fashioned drapery shop, was in the same block, while at the extreme end of the block stood Coutt's shop, known throughout Ballynafeigh for its beautifully cooked and smoked hams. It was a pleasure to run for amessage to this establishment. I can smell the delicious aroma to this nay.

Below these shops and before reaching the Ormeau Bakery stood a row of terrace houses built in the 1870s by a local master builder, James McLeish. These were demolished in 1987 to make way for the new shops adjoining the Ormeau Bakery.

The same J. McLeish supervised the construction of Ballynafeigh Orange Hall. His name, with the names of others involved in the operation, are inscribed on a scroll and buried in a container under the foundations of the Hall.

The Ormeau Bakery, opened by Robert Wilson in 1890, thrived on this site for 90 years, under three different generations of the Wilson family until it was acquired by Andrews Mills in 1980. The exterior of the building changed little during that time save that in the 1930s the ground floor on the Ormeau Road side contained a row of rather quaint timber faced 'lock up' shops. Prior to 1890 the site was occupied by a stable yard and store for two and four wheeled vehicles. I wonder if the reader can recall the use of tar blocks' on the roads? Stretches of these were to be found among the stone square setts that paved the roads. They were blocks of hardwood thoroughly soaked and seasoned in tar oil, their purpose being to absorb the noise of tramcars passing the places of worship on Sundays, so that the faithful would remain undisturbed during their devotions.

I was quite surprised to learn that there was no by-law covering this arrangement, it was simply a matter of courtesy, compliment of the Belfast Tramway Company.

Opposite the Ormeau Babery were South Parade, North Parade and Cooke Centenary Presbyterian Church. South and North Parade were known in the 1930s as Ballynafeigh's 'select quarters'. Most of their residents were business owners or professional people. This area was built in the 1880s.

Incidentally the original South Parade was what is now Chichester Street. Cooke Centenary Church is a beautiful church with its lovely stained glass windows, timbered ceiling and paupers' pews.

Construction commenced on 31st May 1.890 and was completed for the opening date the 1st May, 1892. The Rev. George Matheson was the first preacher, a blind Scotsman whose text was "God is Spirit, God is Light, God is Love." This text can still be read on a scroll painted above the Gothic arch behind the Communion table.

The site for the church was offered by Belfast Corporation. It had been hoped that the church would be erected on the south west side of the Ormeau Bridge, on the river bank. However agreement with the Corporation could not be reached on this point; the church was constructed on its present site from Glebe stone. For three years prior to its construction the congregation held their services and Sunday School in the Orange Hall.

I can recall a lovely summer evening when with a friend joined two gentlemen armed with a stop-watch at a spot facing the church, to carry out a traffic survey. I fear I was more interested in the stop-watch than the survey. Thankfully I had enough sense to take a note of the result, which I came across years later. On that June evening in 1938 the survey taken between 7.M)pm and 9.00pm showed that four wheeled motorised vehicles passed at a rate of one every twenty minutes (in either direction). There is no doubt the Road was quieter and cleaner in those days.

Facing the Ormeau Park at the Ormeau Road / Candahar Street junction, was Dr Young's residence and surgery, a lovely old Victorian brick-built, ivy-covered house. Much changed externally and internally, it is now the practice of Dr Jack Henderson and his partners. In earlier days doctors invaribly resided where their practice was. This had disadvantages as well as advantages. Dr Young, a lovely man from Antrim town, and his wife seemed to keep open house most of the time. Whether the caller sought medical or social advice they were never made to feel unwelcome.

Next door was Miss Maitman's house (off Maltman's garage), another beautiful house with a carefully tended garden. Miss Maltman, a somewhat eccentric old lady, certainly believed cleanliness was next to Godliness. The dust was not allowed to alight even on the garden path. This building was later vandalised (no apology for using the word) when it was converted into an Indian Restaurant. The top floor with its little arched windows is still visible above the 'desecration' that covers the first two floors .

In the next block was Allan's furniture shop, followed by McDowell's wool shop, Waiter Smith's barber shop and the Park flower shop. Below Delhi Stret was W H Reay, motor engineers.

Street names in Ballynafeigh tell us quite a lot, Delhi, Candahar, Baroda and Ava are all residential areas constructedafter the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

Kimberly is named after the discovery of the South African diamond fields. Even further back in the past names like Fernwood, Deramore (big wood) and Ormeau (place of the elms) all speak of the time when the area was heavily wooded.

What sort of place was Ballynafeigh originally? We do not have many sources of information, but fortunately we do have a few, for example, the Book of Rights, a collection of ancient documents older than the Book of Kells, which are attributed to St.

Benen, a disciple of St Patrick. It tells us that 1500 years ago people known as the Kinel Bredach, a branch of a tribe known as the Monachs, were exiled from Leinster by the king and settled eventually on a location situated between the Lagan and Castlereagh.

A very heavy tribute was paid to the ruler on whose land they settled, being one hundred cows, one hundred cloaks, one hundred wethers and one hundred hogs. Little is known of these people.

It is thought that they were dispossessed by the O'Neills of Tyrone who invaded south Antrim and north Down in the thirteenth century. They left nothing behind them as history, except the name Breda. Of the O'Neills who ruled over south Antrim/north Down for three hundred years we do know something.

Ail of the Belfast area, the Lagan valley and Ballynafeigh were once heavily forested and indeed continued to be so until quite recent times. It is on record that as recently as the early 1840s, at the request of a few inhabitants of lower Ormeau and Cromac, the Marquess of Donegall had six passes cut through the forest (so dense as to be impassable) between what is now Ormeau Road and Dublin Road and Sandy Row to save these inhabitants the inconvenience of having to walk into the centre of Belfast to get to Sandy Row. All traces of these passes have disappeared save the Donegall Pass and what remains of Coyle's Place.

One could have drawn a line (with the exception of a few paths leading to Belfast) from east to west through a point roughly at the junction of the Ormeau and Ravenhill Roads and all the land at the beginning of the 1700s between that point and the ford on which Belfast was sited would have been virgin forest, only south of this point at the lower slopes the Castlereagh hills would one have found many natural meadows of good grazing dotted across the hills which were still heavily forested.

One of the Deeds of Lease signed by Con O'Neill in 1610 gives us a rather intriguing insight into what Ballynafeigh looked like then and the needs of the inhabitants of that time.

The parties leasing Ballynafeigh were a Waiter Hillman, a tanner of Carrickfergus and John Spencer a carpenter. The deed, a wood-cutting one, leased Ballynafeigh to these two gentlemen for a period of forty-one years, ten English pounds sterling to be paid each year for the first three and eight pounds per year thereafter. They also agreed not to fell any trees thought fit for barking before the first day of May 'so that Hillman may make use of same for tanning' (oak bark being largely used). They also agreed to ensure the protection of the "coppyis" growing from the stumps of the felled trunks.