Ravensdale Park
Finola Watchorn in her book “Crumlin and the Way it Was” noted that one of the mills on the Poddle was Ravensdale Mill (also called Tinker Flour Mill): “This flour mill stood at the junction of Lower Kimmage Road and Captain’s Lane (now Captain’s Road). The entrance to the mill was in Captain’s Lane. According to the late Mr. Pat Johnson of the Old Dublin Society, ‘… the mill wheel, which was fed by the River Poddle, was of iron, about eight feet in diameter and the power was transmitted through three floors of the mill by a system of gears and a vertical shaft. The level gears were of iron, but the straight-faced gears had a metal body with inserted hardwood teeth. The grinding wheel of stone was still intact in 1928.’ The mill was run by the Drake family who lived at a nearby two-storey house. The milling ceased c. 1917. In 1924 the building was rented by Joe P. KeIIy who, together with his three sons, ran a woodworking (furniture) factory there until it went into liquidation in 1928. By the early 1940s there was very little left of the old mill building. I remember playing around the ruins with my school friends during the 1940s, as we made our way home (very slowly) from the Presentation Convent in Terenure via the old Captain’s Lane. During that time, Lizzie Moran had a little shop in part of the ruined mill, where we purchased our supply of sweets.”
Association with Poddle
Brooklawn was a large house which stood at the Kimmage Cross Roads near the present Ravensdale Park. The Poddle River flowed through the grounds of this house – Finola Watchorn, “Crumlin and the Way it Was”.