Tollymore Forest Park EHOD 2024

About

Tollymore Forest Park, near the village of Bryansford in County Down is one of Northern Ireland's most visited tourist attractions, but it has so much more to offer than just a pleasant place to picnic. The history of Tollymore is a microcosm of the history of the Island of Ireland over the last 500 years, from a time when it was part of the communal ownership of a native Irish Clan, to being the sole preserve and residence of one of the 1000 or so men, and they were all men, who owned all of Ireland, until its present ownership by the State, under the guise of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

Tollymore has many interesting tales to tell, such as when the Tollymore Demesne, as it known as in the early 1900's supplied the White Star line with the oak for the fitting out their ships by Harland and Wolf and one of those ships was the Titanic. Yes, the Grand Staircase of the Titanic was Tollymore Oak!

It is home to two 'fossil trees', trees that were known to exist in fossil records but thought to have gone extinct thousands of years ago, how did they end up in Tollymore. It is also the source of one of North America's most common garden plants, the Tolleymore Norway Spruce, there is a 'Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' connection and even a link to national scandal that nearly brought down the British Government.

Today Tollymore is very much used as a Film and Television location, the famous scene of finding the Dire Wolf pups in Game of Thrones was shot in Tollymore, Jamie Dornan was literally 'shot' in Tollymore in his breakout role in 'The Fall', and more recently scenes for "Dungeons and Dragons", "How to Train your Dragon" were filmed in Tollymore.

One question that is often asked is, where was the 'Big House', every Demesne had one, it would have been the residence of the Clanbrassill and Roden Families, where was it located in the Forest Park and why was it demolished, hopefully on this walk we will find the answers to this and more.