Best Things Across The UK

Castle Ward: The House That Couldn't Agree on a Style — and Became Winterfell Bernard Ward, 1st Viscount Bangor, and his wife Lady Ann Bligh could not agree on what kind of house they wanted to build at their County Down estate in the 1760s. He wanted classical...

Dundrum Castle: Where John de Courcy's Norman Ulster Meets the Mourne Mountains In 1177, the same year that John de Courcy built Carrickfergus Castle on Belfast Lough, he also established a fortress on a rocky hill above Dundrum Bay in County Down. The two...

Glenarm Castle: Six Centuries of the McDonnell Earls, Among the Glens of Antrim In the 1920s, a fire broke out at Glenarm Castle — allegedly started in an attempt to keep the 11th Earl of Antrim's featherless parrot warm. The castle had to be substantially...

Carrickfergus Castle: Ireland's Greatest Norman Fortress, Above Belfast Lough In 1315, Robert the Bruce's brother Edward invaded Ireland with an army and besieged Carrickfergus Castle. The siege went on so long, and provisions ran so completely dry, that the...

Kinbane Castle: The White Head Castle at the End of 140 Steps, Above the Atlantic Kinbane means "white head" in Irish — Caisleán Ceinn Bán — and the name is immediately clear to anyone who looks at the limestone headland on which the castle stands: the cliff...

Hillsborough Castle: Where Northern Ireland's Peace Was Made, Twenty Minutes from Belfast In 1771, Wills Hill — the first Marquess of Downshire, one of the most powerful men in British colonial politics — received Benjamin Franklin at Hillsborough Castle. The...