Spawell Road lies at the foot of Hill Street in Wexford Town. It is approximately 1 km in length and stretches from Carcur on the north side of the town to Westgate and Slaney Street. It is best known for the redbrick houses of Glena Terrace, Redmond Park, and the former location of Loreto Secondary School, a Catholic girls’ school that moved to a new campus in Ballynagee in 2018.
The street’s name originates from an old spa well that once stood near Westgate, beneath the building now housing The Old Granary restaurant. Locally, the well was referred to as “the Spa.”
The most striking part of Spawell Road is Glena Terrace, a row of eight redbrick three-storey houses. Mary O’Connor built them in 1892. A building contractor by trade, she took over her husband’s practice after his early death. Over the years, she made several significant contributions to the architecture of Wexford Town.
An Ordnance Survey map from the 1800s names several notable buildings and houses in the area. Strandfield House, constructed in the mid-1700s, still stands within the Strandfield Manor housing estate. The building has since suffered fire damage and lengthy periods of vacancy, though it was later repaired. Spawell Mill stood on what is now the front half of Redmond Park. It was also known as Howard Rowe’s Flour Mill and, before that, Scallan’s Brewery. Other entries on the map include Riverview Terrace, Tivoli Terrace, and Carcur House, all still in existence today. The map also lists Riverside House, Lorne Villa, a rectory, St. Joseph’s Chapel and Convent, and the Loretto Convent, later the site of Loreto Secondary School.
Today, the road is home to several housing estates, including Priory Court, Richmond Terrace, Spawell Crescent, and Spawell Lane.
Wexford Gaol was used as a prison until the early 1900s. The women’s prison and the front gates of the surrounding grounds are still intact. Later, it was converted into St. Brigid’s Centre, an alcoholism treatment centre. The area became known as St. Brigid’s Road during the 1910s, likely due to this association. Spawell Road was also known locally as the Jail Road.
According to Philip Herbert Hore’s History of Town and County of Wexford (1906), the Spawell Road area was first referred to as Whitewell in 1650. The name Whitewell may have originated from the well in the area.
On 2 October 1649, Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army arrived at the outskirts of Wexford Town. During the first day of the siege, Cromwell’s army set up camp in this area, before eventually circling around the outskirts and relocating to Trespan Rock on the south of the wall.
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Spawell Road on Google Maps:
Read More: Photographs of Wexford.