Donald,
Just got back from a quick trip home and have to report the following:
1.41 Steps - Gone
2. Down Villas - Gone
3.Lock View - Gone
4.The Double “sheough” at Sandy Lane - Gone (the SL is just about navigable)
5. Front & Back Row in Hilden - Gone (and every other house in Hilden) apart from the crescent next to the school.
There is now no access to the back gate of the mill from the Low Road. The path between the Mill Race and the River Lagan is completely overgrown. The two bridges at Grove St and the 41’s are still there but you cannot get down to them. I suspect the two bridges over to Lock View have also gone.
I went on the new boat on the Lagan and was very impressed with what the owners are doing. I am sure one of the other exiles will be able to expand on the trip upriver under the Union Bridge.
Down river we went as far as the over flow facing McConnell’s Hill where the canal becomes blocked. The chap in charge was saying that they may be dredging the canal down to John McPolin’s locks in the next year or so.
There is even a salmon ladder between the canal and the river just below the “point”!!! (no coddin’)
I went over to Tullynacross and you would not recognise the area between Hilden Bridge and Tullynacross. Even the old school in T’cross has been converted to a house.
Lisburn truly is a new place and the amount of development is unbelievable.
Ref- Altona.
I am reliably informed that the area got its name from a large house which was called “Altona House”. I have no way of verifying this but it seems logical. There is certainly an Altona Road in the area .
I will add any other points I remember but would welcome questions to jog the memory.
LR

Sounds like they have done a lot more changes to Lisburn,I suppose if you live there the change would be seen as for the better.It seems so long ago that there was boat traffic going up and down the Lagan,and barges etc.pulling into Quay ST.I guess people like Dabbler who haven't been back for years would not know the area they grew up in.I was back five years ago and thought the changes were tremedous.Ken.

Lowroader, willkommen zuruck, Grüß dich!
I suppose that,s progress, people and things we grew up with are gone. I think the school in Tullynacross was a billiard hall at the finish. Double Ditches? What purpose did they serve. Possible that two landowners once had a dispute and each built one? I walked down the line fron the Union Bridge past McPolin,s locks to Hilden, then had a pint in the Hilden brewery and back up the town via Low Road on 17th March 2004. Altona?Funny there are so many similarities and contacts between Ireland and Germany. I read that after the war 1945 the Irish people took thousands of German children into their homes and collected 10 million pounds!!!!! ( 1945 )for poverty relief in Germany. The German Government later expressed their thanks by having a bronze monument created by a famous Munich skulptor, erected in O´Connell Street .Quite a number of the orphaned German children found homes and remained in Ireland. Could that have contributed towards the contacts, names and friendship?
Donald