Groups audience:
This fine 3 storey, stone building was built by George Gardiner in 1895/6 on leased land .The land was owned by the descendants of the Lombard family and Lombardstown Creamery had a lease on it and seem to have sublet this 2 acre property to the Musgrave Brothers who sublet it to George Gardiner who had built the house there. The property was leased to the Gardiners until they sold out to the Healy family in c.1922 who continued the lease from Musgrave Bros until recent times. It would appear that these transactions were a ground rent arrangement. Musgraves was started by two Musgrave brothers in Corks North Main St. in 1876 and in 1894 formed Musgrave Brothers in Grand Parade in Cork and they took out the lease in Lombardstown in 1896 which suggests Lombardstown was a very early enterprise for Musgrave Brothers.
