Overview and layout
Stratford-on-Slaney is one of the few Irish villages drawn on paper before it was built. From 1774, Edward Stratford, 2nd Earl of Aldborough, laid out a model industrial town on a hill above the River Slaney, borrowing the double-crescent plan and octagonal square from Georgian Bath. The design still reads clearly on the ground: twelve streets and four squares set around the octagon, with names like Winetavern Street and Church Road. At its height in the early 19th century the town had 108 planned houses, held markets on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and ran to nearly 3,000 people. The Earl was a stickler for order, insisting homes be kept in repair and the streets clear.
Today about 240 people live here (241 at the 2016 census), and the place trades on that same tidiness – it took a Highly Commended in the 2014 Tidy Towns awards. Its Irish name, Áth na Sráide, means “the ford of the street”.
The mill
The Earl’s ambition was economic as much as architectural: he wanted a textile town to rival the mills of Britain, and the Slaney had the water to power it. The Scottish firm of Orr Smith & Co. bought the works in 1791 and set up cotton and calico printing the following year, cutting a purpose-built canal to drive a water wheel reckoned the best in Ireland. At its peak the mill put over 1,000 people to work and turned out around 2,000 finished pieces a week.
It didn’t last. The Great Famine and a fever outbreak in 1847 gutted the workforce, many of the skilled hands drifting back to Scotland and County Down. The mill changed hands and was sold in 1852, and by the mid-20th century the factory town had all but disappeared, leaving stone foundations and the line of the old canal along the riverbank. Walk the bank today and you can still read the scale of what was here, and wonder why a remote Wicklow hilltop once hummed with a thousand looms.
What to see and do
- The Georgian layout – Walk the double-crescent streets and stand in the octagonal square; it’s one of the clearest pieces of planned town-building in rural Ireland.
- The River Slaney walk – A flat, marked path follows the river below the village, easy going and good for herons, kingfishers and the odd otter in late spring and summer.
- The churches – The village has three: the Church of Ireland church of St John the Baptist, built in 1790; St Mary’s Roman Catholic church of the 1840s, on the site of an older chapel; and a former Presbyterian meeting house. Generally open around services.
- The mill foundations – The stone remains along the lower riverbank, with information boards on the canal and water wheel.
- A local match – Stratford Grangecon GAA, just north of the village, plays hurling and football through the season; the club goes back to 1896.
Nearby
Stratford makes a handy base for West Wicklow, and it’s well off the Glendalough coach route. Two miles on lie the Castleruddery stone circle and motte, both national monuments and the obvious next stop. Baltinglass, a little over two miles south-west, has its ruined medieval abbey, and the West Wicklow Historical Society runs walking tours that take in Stratford’s industrial past.
Practical information
- Getting there – Off the R747, about 3.6 km north-north-east of Baltinglass; a little over an hour from Dublin via the M11 and R747.
- Parking – Free in the village centre and at the riverside-walk car park.
- Public transport – Buses serve Baltinglass; the nearest rail station is Dunlavin, roughly 8 km away.
- Facilities – A village shop and a primary school (Scoil Náisiúnta Mhuire); the old post office, open from 1833 to 2008, has been put to other use. For cafés and pubs, head to Baltinglass.
- When to go – The riverside path is best from May to September, when it’s dry and the wildlife’s about; winter can bring high water and flooding on the lower stretch.
- Access and dogs – The riverside path and village lanes are flat and easy; dogs welcome on leads.
If you do one thing, walk the river path below the village in early summer, when the water’s low and the mill foundations show through the grass along the bank.