Mal Rogersretraces the footsteps of CS Lewis in Tollymore Forest Park. Full of beautiful ruins and hills, curios and trees, it's a pure fantasy setting
BELFAST-BORN WRITER CS Lewis drew his inspiration from Tollymore Forest Park. Poet Edward Lear also took to the place. "Full of beautiful ruins and bridges and trees and hills and mills and lawns and laurels," he said, before going off to write The Owl and the Pussycat. Probably.
Tollymore Forest in Co Down is festooned with monumental follies - Gothic outrages, geometrical curios, grottoes, obelisks and barbicans. There's enough to activate the muse in anyone.
Begin in the main car park, once the site of the Clanbrassill Big House. Immediately head for the arboretum with its hundreds of tree species - including a dwarf Norway spruce, the first specimen ever recorded and now more than 200 years old.
Wander through myriad horticultural A-list superstars (dawn redwoods, black junipers, maidenhair trees) to the top of the Azalea Walk. After a few hundred metres you'll come to a small, classical fountain. The water spouts from the mouth of a stone lion - according to local legend, Aslan.
The path leads fairly steeply downhill now, underneath the Horn Bridge. With its tiny turrets, crenellations and shamrock-shaped embrasures, it looks for all the world like an overgrown toy castle. Through the bridge, and the hillside explodes in a profusion of rare plants and shrubs. These rockeries are a result of some 200 years of planting, pruning, weeding and, of course, thieving.
Away to the right is the oak grove that supplied wood for the Titanic's main staircase.
At the bottom of the gardens turn left towards the ornamental lake, overlooked by the Seven Sisters. These gigantic silver firs are the highest trees in the forest. Gawp upwards for a few minutes and then take the road downhill to the Ivy Bridge. Built in 1780, each corner is decorated with an ornamental stone sentry box.
The route now hugs the fast-flowing Shimna River. Several more curios crop up - the tiny Foley's Bridge spanning a torrential waterfall; a stone chair engraved with Alexander Pope's poetry; a glacial erratic (a huge split boulder) with biblical text inscribed. And that's only the obvious stuff.
The riverside path eventually leads to the oddest folly on the estate, the Old Hermitage. Two chambers - each about four metres by three, and made from intricate stonework - straddle the path. Overlooking a deep pool on the Shimna, the faux hermitage is equipped with stone steps that take you up into a dark, coniferous forest. Yes, it really looks like it's tumbled out of a fairy tale. Or a chronicle.
Beyond the conifers the path wends through a eucalyptus wood and back to the car park.
Tollymore Forest Park, Co Down
• Start and finishThe car park of Tollymore Forest Park, Bryansford.
• How to get thereTollymore is about three kilometres from Newcastle, Co Down.
DistanceAbout five kilometres.
• TimeIf you stop at every curio and panorama en route (and you get terrific views of the Mountains of Mourne), then it will take you more than two hours.
• MapOrdnance Survey of Northern Ireland, Mourne Country.
• Best thing about the walkIt has everything - beautiful scenery, flora, fauna and folk tales.
• SuitabilityAn easy ramble, suitable for pretty much any degree of fitness.
• RefreshmentsNone available anywhere in the park. Bryansford village, just outside the main gates, has the nearest shop.
• For details of Discover Ireland loop walks,walking events and festivals go to www.discoverireland.ie/ walking