Tollymore walk

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With mist and rain forecast for higher ground last week our weekly outing destination was changed to Tollymore Forest Park.  This might sound a bit limiting for those used to the mountains but we usually manage around 10 miles and 1600 feet of ascent and descent.

Departing a bit from the usual route which starts in the main carpark, we met at the Trassey carpark and walked in down the long lane past the King's Grave (1500-1000BC), a round cairn some 22 yards in diameter (according to Mourne Country by Professor E Estyn Evans).  I didn't photograph it as it just looks like a grassy stony mound amongst the trees.  

We moved on to visit a couple of other curiosities.  Firstly an unusual bridge over a stream.

However, a study of old OS maps shows that a wall crossed the stream in this area and what is left may simply be the base of the wall as it crossed the stream.

Next was the remains of what a local lady referred to as the church for the family who lived in" the big house" before the park was taken over by the Forest Service.  

I was here in November and noted that mountain bikers had established a route through the archway of the church and exited over the rubble that previously formed the back wall. 

The Forest Service has since blocked off the start of the bike route and also felled a couple of trees to effectively block off riding through the church.  Unfortunately they are close enough to the church to make photography difficult without a very wide-angle lens.

BW standing on the rubble of the back wall.

The White Fort was the next location visited.  This is  a large cashel measuring 44x54 m with 3 m thick walls. The walls are approximately 2 m high but were likely more than double that when it was in use during the first millennium AD.  It is a circular, stone-walled, enclosure that was an early farmstead from c.500-1000 AD. They protected extended families from wolves and other passing threats. It is very overgrown with vegetation and you need to walk around the wall to get some sense of its scale. 

Mr White on the wall of the White Fort (the original ancestral home?)

The walk continued up past the White Plains and The Drinns where we noticed the tight construction of the boundary wall which is made from shale which is the underlying rock here rather than the granite which is the rock type for a large part of the Mournes.

On the way back we stopped briefly at Maria's Bridge where the stream had a great flow of water.

A damp but quite satisfying day.