Dundonald Touring Caravan Park, Castlereigh, County Down, Ulster

                

Today was to be all about the Ards Peninsula with a National Trust property thrown in for good measure, and it did turn out that way, but tipped on its head. It was more about the Trust’s property with the peninsula thrown in for afters. This was all after a debate that finally ruled out returning to Belfast to check out parts of West Belfast that Paul had hurried us through, but did mean lots of walking the city pavements, a more tiring exercise than walking in the woods. I expressed my preference and won the psychological tossup. 

So we set off about 9.30 am first heading east across to Newtownards on the A20, passing through this rather uninspiring town. Newtownards has a population of a little under 30,000, mainly Protestants and apart from being labelled a market town does not seem to have any particular industry to drive the economy, even though it seems more industrial than a rural service centre. As we grazed the southern edge of the town, we noticed the rather odd tower, capped with a crown high on a hill beyond and did wonder what that was all about.

About five miles south of this town, still on the A20 which hugs the western shore of the Strangford Lough, we arrived at Mount Stewart, not a mountain at all. The Lough is a 150 square kilometre sea inlet, almost landlocked by the Ards Peninsula, the largest inlet in the British Isles.

The National Trust manages large swathes of the Lough and the shoreline, a conservation activity working with the marine leisure groups as well as the folk who use the small airfield a little to the north. The Lough is a wonderful refuge and breeding ground for birds, principally waders and shorebirds, many of whom make this a temporary resting place on their way elsewhere, hence the liaison with boaties and flyers who might otherwise upset the wildlife.

Arriving at Mount Stewart, we popped into the Lough Lookout hut manned by a young NT woman, passionate about the wildlife of the area and keen to convince us that we should be the same. Of course we are very interested in such matters although more as spectators than activists. We discussed red and grey squirrels, pine martens (of which there is a lone male lurking in the woods of the property), Brent geese, bats and foxes, before moving on and leaving her to instil her enthusiasm into the rest of the visitors who had arrived in the interim.

We booked for the house tour at 11.30 am, then set off up through the wooded hill, not a mountain, to the walled gardens. This would give us a mile long walk allowing us to be back in time for our tour. We followed the path up through pines, pongas, phormiums, cabbage trees and other trees that seemed at odds away from DownUnder, until we arrived at the brick walled space, one corner of it planted out in roses, some of which were still in bloom. But the structures about the edge of the garden, and the rest of the sheltered plot, were a shambles. A few rather gnarled apple trees survive, a few apples ripening for the bees or apple pies that the café cooks might gather. This is a work in progress and will be for many years to come. 

We returned on an alternative path, skirting around the lovely lake, greeted by lines of ducks and within sight of a large family of swans, the signets still grey but as large as their parents. Perhaps in the summer there are more blooms in this area; today we had to be satisfied with the turning of the maple leaves. In another month this will be a mess of gold and brown and quite wonderful.

Our guided tour through the house with about a dozen others was excellent, although as usual only covered a small proportion of this very large house. This was the country cottage to the Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry, until it passed into the hands of the National Trust in stages; the gardens in 1957 and the house and most of its contents in 1977, although members of the family still live in part of the house. 

In 1999 the Mount Stewart gardens were added to the United Kingdom “Tentative List’ of sites for potential nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Few gardens are given such honour, and credit must be given to Edith, the wife of the 7^th Marquess, who redesigned the garden in the 1920s and to the National Trust who has managed to restore them to the glory of those years.  Recently they were voted in the top ten gardens in the world; now that is a very big claim.

Here on the shore of the Lough, the property has its own micro-climate which has allowed trees and other plants to thrive and mature faster than they would outside this space. The dozens of Australian eucalypts tower over the gardens, New Zealand pittosporums grow bigger than I have ever seen them in their native land, and the cabbage trees are amongst the healthiest I have ever encountered. 

The property of Mount Stewart was purchased in 1744 by Alexander Stewart with family money made in the linen industry and other commercial interests. The family were Scots-Irish, planters in Northern Ireland in the 16^th century originally of the MacGregor family, the name changed to Stewart during the reign of James I, all of which causes me great distress as a genealogist.

The house was added to by Alexander’s successor, Robert, who became the 1^st Marquess of Londonderry. This Stewart was better known as Viscount Castlereagh, one of Britain’s most famous Foreign Secretaries, he who was instrumental in the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814, which was all part of the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. His half-brother succeeded the title and the estate and married well, adding to the already full coffers and land bank. It was with these funds that the house was enlarged and refurbished in the 1840s at a cost of £150,000 while the poor were dying all about during the potato famine.

All the while these Marquesses continued to live in London or other larger properties about England and Wales, just popping over to Mount Stewart on the odd whim, and with this half-hearted interest, came neglect.

By the time the 7^th Marquess married Edith, she declared the house a hole but saw great potential. She set to and refurbished the house, with great style, as she seemed to do with everything. The ideas and workmanship is superb, the interior full of surprises and a real gem for the Trust. Our guide drew our attention to many of these clever features and we could only agree that it was all rather special.

After the tour and lunch, we wandered about the formal gardens; the Sunk, Shamrock, Mairi, Peace, Italian and Spanish Gardens, the Dodo Terrace, Fountain Walk and the Lily Wood. Even after the end of summer, they were all superb, setting the house off to advantage. I do find the fact that the garden is considered to be in the top ten gardens in the world rather bizarre; I have seen many better, and I have not even seen a fraction of the special gardens of the world. But they are worth exploration as is the entire property, and we only saw one corner of the property. To the south there are trails through the woods which one could access without passing through the formal entry.

We spent three and a half hours at Mount Stewart, which did cause us to question the wisdom of travelling further around the peninsula, however after debate we decided to press on south to Portaferry, where one can catch the ferry across the Lough entry channel to Strangford and proceed easily on to Downpatrick.

We travelled on down through lush dairy farmland, the road like a rollercoaster, as so many of the roads in Ireland are. Arriving at Portaferry, we parked up in the village centre and walked down to the ferry terminal and wharf. From here we could clearly see Strangford and what we assumed to be the visible part of the tidal turbine we had read about.

This was the world’s first commercial-scale tidal turbine and commissioned in mid-2008. Costing £12 million, it comprised of two 600KW turbines which were built at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff’s shipyards, they who constructed the Titanic. Full power operation was finally achieved at the end of 2008, however we read later that the system was removed in 2017 after Siemans sold the company and technology to rival Altantis Resources in 2015. The initial funding for the project had come from the UK Department of Trade & Industry and the UK Government granted £5.2 million towards it. Northern Ireland Electricity provided funding of £500,000 as part of NIW Smart (Sustainable Management of Assets and Renewable Technologies) which encourages the development of renewable power and energy efficient alternatives throughout Northern Ireland. It seems to me that somewhere along the way there was a large profit made which did not filter back into the public purse whence it came.

Anyway, we spotted a protrusion in the channel and assumed it was part of the tidal generator, although a fellow on the jetty reckoned there was nothing happening now. It turned out he was right. Instead we watched as the ferry pulled out from the wharf, and admired the sea frontage, quite charming but certainly not indicative of a fun-filled seaside resort.

Back in the car, we headed north east across to Cloughy on the Irish Sea coast, and continued up now on the A2, soon encountering dozens of Holiday Parks full of those static caravans doing nothing for the scenery. We also saw far off silhouette of land mass, later identified as Scotland’s Mull of Galloway.

At Millisle, we turned west onto a minor road, returning to Newtownards, this time seeing a better side of town, the houses less shabby that those along the southern edge. We drove through the centre of the town, busy with the Saturday afternoon crowd, buzzing with colour and commerce, changing our impression of the place entirely.

We also found out that the tower spotted earlier, Scrabo Tower, was built as a memorial to the 3^rd Marquess of Londonderry, which all fitted together after our visit to Mount Stewart.

The day had remained fine throughout, but still so very cold. Tomorrow we will travel a little south to our last camp in Ireland before heading back to Wales, England and hopefully warmer and dryer weather.