…To the Other End of Town



Located at the northern end of Rathdrum, County Wicklow, this is what remains of Ardavon, once home to the Comerfords, a family responsible for building a mill in the lower part of the town in the mid-19th century. The mill eventually closed in 1935 but the buildings still stand on one side of the bridge crossing the river Avonmore. Meanwhile the Comerfords remained at Ardavon until 1958 when the house was acquired by the Wicklow County Vocational Education Committee. It was then used as a school but in 1991 Avondale Community College opened and Ardavon became redundant, a property owned, but not used, by the local authority. Soon enough the inevitable happened: in 1997 the house was badly damaged by fire and despite undertakings by Wicklow Council to undertake restoration work, it has remained a roofless ruin ever since.


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