Things to do in Ards and North Down District Council

Quintin Castle is a private castle on the Ards Peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland, one of the very few Anglo-Norman castles in Ulster to have been in continuous occupation by the same family, the Savage family, since the Norman period. The Savages were among the earliest Anglo-Norman settlers in east Ulster, arriving with John de Courcy's forces in the 1170s and establishing themselves as lords of the Ards Peninsula for centuries afterward. The castle incorporates medieval fabric within a substantially rebuilt and extended building of later centuries, and the long continuity of occupation by one family gives it an unusual historical depth. The Ards Peninsula location provides access to the beautiful east shore of Strangford Lough, one of the most important tidal inlets in Ireland for both natural heritage and early Christian history.

Portaferry Castle is a small sixteenth-century tower house in the centre of Portaferry town at the southern end of the Ards Peninsula in County Down, controlling the narrows of the Strangford Lough entrance where the powerful tidal currents between the lough and the open sea create one of the most unusual water habitats in Ireland. The castle runs alongside Castle Street leading from The Square to the ferry slipway, giving it a prominent urban position in this picturesque town. The waters of Strangford Narrows visible from the castle are a marine nature reserve of international importance. Portaferry is home to Exploris Aquarium, Northern Ireland's only public aquarium, and the short ferry crossing to Strangford village on the opposite shore provides access to the western lough shore and the Lecale Peninsula.

Sketrick Castle is a ruined fifteenth-century tower house on an island in Strangford Lough near Ardmillan in County Down, Northern Ireland, one of the characteristic lough-shore and island castles that punctuate the extraordinary landscape of this great tidal inlet. The castle was associated with the Savage family of the Ards Peninsula and controlled movement across this part of the lough. The surrounding waters of Strangford Lough provide one of the most important marine and coastal habitats in Ireland, supporting internationally significant populations of brent geese, waders, wildfowl and the diverse marine life of a tidal lough system. The heritage landscape of Strangford Lough shores, combining early Christian sites, Norman earthworks, plantation-era settlements and Victorian estate buildings, makes this one of the richest historical landscapes in Northern Ireland.

Kirkistown Castle is a well-preserved seventeenth-century tower house on the Ards Peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland, built in 1622 by the Savage family, an Anglo-Norman dynasty who had held lands on the Ards Peninsula from the earliest period of Norman colonisation of east Ulster. The tower is a compact three-storey structure with battered lower walls and corbelled parapets typical of Ulster tower house design, set in the flat agricultural landscape of the Ards Peninsula close to the sea. The Ards Peninsula forms the eastern boundary of Strangford Lough, and the surrounding landscape of flat farmland, small fishing harbours and the beautiful lough provide a distinctive coastal character well suited to gentle cycling and coastal walking.

Grey Abbey on the shores of Strangford Lough in County Down is the finest and most completely preserved Cistercian abbey ruin in Ireland, a monastery of the twelfth century founded in 1193 by Affreca, daughter of the King of Man and wife of John de Courcy, whose substantial church and cloister buildings survive in unusually good condition above the beautiful setting of the lough shore. The abbey is managed by Historic Environment Northern Ireland and the combination of the architectural quality of the ruins, the medieval physic garden and the surrounding Strangford Lough landscape creates one of the most rewarding monastic heritage visits in Ulster. The abbey church at Grey Abbey is one of the finest examples of early Gothic architecture in Ireland, its pointed arches and ribbed vaulting representing the arrival of the Gothic style in Ireland in a building of considerable ambition and quality for its remote lough shore setting. The west doorway of the church, with its elaborate mouldings and decoration, is one of the finest pieces of medieval stonework in Northern Ireland and demonstrates the architectural ambition of the founding community's building programme. The reconstructed physic garden adjacent to the ruins provides a creative interpretation of the medicinal plants that a Cistercian community would have cultivated for the treatment of the sick in their infirmary, and the combination of the garden, the ruins and the lough shore setting creates a visit of considerable variety and historical depth.

Mount Stewart on the shores of Strangford Lough in County Down is one of the finest gardens in Ireland and one of the most remarkable National Trust garden properties in the British Isles, a garden of approximately 30 acres created from 1921 onward by Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry. The mild Strangford Lough microclimate allows cultivation of tender plants from the Southern Hemisphere and the Mediterranean impossible in most of Northern Ireland. The formal gardens include the Spanish Garden, the Italian Garden, the Sunken Garden, the Mairi Garden and the Shamrock Garden, each with distinct character and planting reflecting the warmth and ambition of their creator's horticultural vision. The mildness of the microclimate creates the diversity of plant material that gives the garden its remarkable variety. The woodland walks around the lake provide a more naturalistic complement to the formal gardens, the mature trees and the lakeside setting of Strangford Lough creating a landscape of considerable natural quality. The combination of the formal and informal gardens with the extraordinary lough setting makes Mount Stewart one of the most rewarding garden visits in Ulster.

Strangford Lough in County Down is the largest sea lough in the British Isles, a complex inlet of approximately 150 square kilometres connected to the Irish Sea through the Narrows, a tidal strait only about 500 metres wide at its narrowest point through which 350 million tonnes of water pour with each tidal cycle, creating some of the most powerful tidal currents in Northern Ireland. This dynamic tidal energy, combined with the sheltered waters of the lough itself, has created an environment of extraordinary ecological richness that has been recognised with multiple designations at national and international level. The lough contains over 100 islands and hosts one of the largest populations of common seals in Ireland, with grey seals also present in smaller numbers. The tidal mudflats and saltmarsh habitats support enormous numbers of wintering and migrating wading birds, including internationally significant populations of brent geese that arrive from the Arctic each autumn and spend the winter grazing on the eel-grass beds within the lough. The clear, clean waters of the lough support exceptional marine biodiversity including species more usually associated with offshore reef habitats. In 2008 the world's first commercial tidal energy turbine began generating electricity from the tidal currents in the Narrows, a demonstration project that reflected both the exceptional power available here and the growing interest in renewable energy from tidal currents. The turbine operated for several years before being decommissioned, but the project established Strangford Lough as a location of international significance for marine renewable energy research. The shoreline of the lough is richly layered with history. Castle Ward, a National Trust property near Strangford village with its extraordinary schizophrenic architecture reflecting the disagreement of its 18th-century owners between Gothic and Classical styles, is one of the most visited historic houses in Northern Ireland and has gained additional fame as a filming location for Game of Thrones. Nendrum Monastery on Mahee Island preserves the remains of an important early Christian monastic site that was established here in the fifth century.