A&ND DUS A5 AW FINAL:Layout 1 14/01/2016 16:56 Page 1 IT WAS MAY 1606 when Scottish families began to settle in the Ards and North Down, led by James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery from Ayrshire, following the land deal they had struck with Con O’Neill of Castlereagh. In 1683, Montgomery’s grandson William (who is buried at Grey Abbey) wrote the first tourist trail of the area, entitled Description of Ardes Barony, in the County of Down . Many of the places he described can still be visited today. COPELAND GRAHAM’S PORT ISLANDS BANGOR BANGOR PORTAVO ABBEY DONAGHADEE CREBOY MOVILLA ABBEY NEWTOWNARDS NEWTOWNARDS PRIORY SCRABO S T BALLYWALTER R A BLACK COMBER N ABBEY G GREY F ABBEY O R A MAP FROM D BALLYHALBERT L BURIAL ISLE O Description of SKETRICK U CASTLE G Ardes Barony H ARDKEEN CASTLE in the County KIRKISTOWN CASTLEBOY CASTLE of Down ARDQUIN BALLYGALGET ABBACY CASTLE NEWCASTLE by WILLIAM PORTAFERRY QUINTIN MONTGOMERY CASTLE of Greyabbey, 1683 FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit North Down Museum , where Visit Cathedral Quarter’s new the Plantation Room houses Discover Ulster-Scots Centre the original 17th Century Raven Corn Exchange, 1 –9 Victoria Street, FREE APP Maps and interactive exhibit. Belfast BT1 3GA AVAILABLE FROM ITUNES www.northdownmuseum.com www.discoverulsterscots.com AND GOOGLE PLAY Tel: 028 9127 1200 Tel: 028 9043 6710 A&ND DUS A5 AW FINAL:Layout 1 14/01/2016 16:57 Page 2 ULSTER-SCOTS HERI TAGE IN ARDS AND NO RTH DOWN visitardsandnorthdown.com | discoverulsterscots.com A&ND DUS A5 AW FINAL:Layout 1 14/01/2016 16:57 Page 3 JUST 18 MILES TO SCOTLAND People have been visiting Ards and North Down for thousands of years. Our area is dotted with dolmens, cairns and raths from ancient times – and our close proximity to Scotland is a big part of our story. Local tradition says that St Patrick Hamilton and Montgomery Centuries of Connections arrived at Templepatrick just Smith failed to oust the O’Neills It was these Scottish settlers of south of Donaghadee, having left of Castlereagh , but over 30 years the 1600s that transformed Ards Portpatrick in Scotland. Viking later Ayrshiremen James Hamilton and North Down. In 1606 there raiders gave Strangford Lough and Hugh Montgomery struck a were only a few ‘ruined churches’ its name, Anglo-Normans like the deal with Con O’Neill . In May 1606 and ‘roofless cabins’. What you Savages built abbeys and castles. they started to bring boatloads of can see today is largely a result A branch of the O’Neills moved in Scottish families to our shores. of centuries of Ulster-Scots thrift, and remained until the 1570s Working with the O’Neills, and also graft and perseverance. From when Sir Thomas Smith attempted the Savage family, Lowland Scots towns and villages to our rolling but failed to establish an English settled from the River Lagan all landscape and place names, and colony here with a new city, a the way to the bottom of the the ‘wee’ turns of phrase you’ll ‘little London’, called Elizabetha. Peninsula. Their surnames can overhear when talking to the older still be found all over the Ards locals, all of Ards and North Down and North Down today. is in some way Ulster-Scots. U G H L O MAP OF ARDS S T A F AN D NORTH DOWN, L E GROOMSPORT MAY 1606 B BANGOR Many Scottish families settled here; others moved CRAWFORDSBURN COUNCIL HOLYWOOD DONAGHADEE on to other parts of Ulster, BOUNDARY others came across in the CONLIG centuries which followed. MILLISLE DUNDONALD NEWTOWNARDS O’NEILL CARROWDORE Con O’Neill’s castle and power CASTLE REAGH S BALLYWALTER base was at Castlereagh. COMBER T R GRE YABBEY The O’Neills retained townlands A N LOWER in this area, indicated in white. G F ‘GREAT’ O R ARDS BALLYHALBERT D LISBURN HILLHALL CARRYDUFF BALLYGOWAN L KIRCUBBIN O KILLINCHY U PORTAVOGIE G SAINTFIELD H HILLSBOROUGH COUNCIL CLOUGHEY BOUNDARY UPPER ‘LITTLE’ KILLYLEAGH Many Scottish families ARDS settled in the Savage CROSSGAR HAMILTON PORTAFERRY estates known as the Upper Ards or Little MONTGOMERY Ards. The Savages STRANGFORD SAVAGE leased land to Hamilton Based on a map shown in The Scottish Migration to Ulster and Montgomery. in the Reign of James I by Michael Perceval-Maxwell (1973) DOWNPATRICK A&ND DUS A5 AW FINAL:Layout 1 14/01/2016 16:57 Page 4 BANGOR Bangor is an ancient Christian and monastic site. Under Sir James Hamilton the town grew rapidly and by 1611 it contained 80 new houses ‘all inhabited with Scotyshmen and Englishmen’. In 1613 Bangor received a charter of incorporation from the King. In the late 1600s the Ward family of Castle Ward married into the Hamiltons. Busy streets like Hamilton Road , The Vennel (a common street name in lowland Scotland) and even Pickie (an Ulster-Scots word for a young coalfish) carry on the connections. Scottish country dancing was a popular activity at Pickie on Saturday afternoons during the 50s and 60s. Sir James Hamilton Bangor Castle garden features a ‘chapiter’, brought from Africa by © National Trust, Castle Ward Admiral James Hamilton Ward (1802 –1873) Bangor Abbey North Down Museum Tower House The church contains a fascinating The Museum, attached to Bangor The Tower House in Bangor is the collection of early 17th-century Castle, is near the site of Sir most important 17th-century port church monuments, including James Hamilton’s original home. building surviving in Ulster. It one to Rev. John Gibson (d. 1623), Among the Museum's prized was built as a custom-house in the first Protestant minister in possessions is the beautiful set of 1637 by Sir James Hamilton who the parish, and another to Beatrix maps of Bangor and surrounding had ambitions to develop Bangor Hamilton (d. 1633), the wife of townlands drawn for Hamilton by into an important port. In more his successor, Rev. Robert Blair . Thomas Raven in 1625. Another recent times the building has However there is no memorial to remarkable artefact is a slate been used as a photographic Sir James Hamilton who was buried sundial dating from 1630 that studio, the Council-run ‘Hot Sea here in 1644. The cemetery includes was once fixed to Bangor Abbey. Water Baths’, and an antiques 1798 Rebellion gravestones and It was the work of John Bonar, shop. The building now houses es that of famous Ulster-Scots writer a schoolmaster in Ayr, Scotland, the Visitor Information Centre. W.G. Lyttle , a blue plaque to whom whose other sundials can be www.visitardsandnorthdown.com is at 85 Main Street. seen in Scottish museums. Tel: 028 9127 0069 (BT20 5ED) www.bangorabbey.org www.northdownmuseum.com ton Tel: 028 9145 1087 (BT20 4JF) Tel: 028 9127 1200 (BT20 4BT) A&ND DUS A5 AW FINAL:Layout 1 14/01/2016 16:57 Page 5 NEWTOWNARDS Originally an important Anglo-Norman settlement, in the early 1600s Sir Hugh Montgomery established his ‘headquarters’ at Newtownards and with the assistance of his wife Elizabeth oversaw the development of the town which by 1611 included around 100 houses ‘all peopled with Scottes’. In 1744 Newtownards was acquired by the Stewart family. The Town Hall was built as a market house around 1770; during the 1798 Rebellion it was held for a time by a party of United Irishmen. St Mark’s Church of Ireland , completed in 1817, is one of the best examples for its date of the Perpendicular Gothic style in the British Isles. Ards Arts Centre, formerly the Town Hall, was attacked in 1798. Sir Hugh Montgomery The building still has the prison cell where the 1798 rebellion men were held. Newtownards Priory and Bawn Market Cross Movilla Abbey and Cemetery In 1244 a Dominican priory was Under Sir Hugh Montgomery’s On the outskirts of Newtownards founded in Newtownards. When direction Newtownards became an is Movilla Cemetery. This was the Sir Hugh Montgomery moved to important market centre. The story site of a monastery founded by Newtownards he converted the is told that in 1607 merchants St Finian in the 6th century which cloistral buildings of the priory to would travel from Scotland to became an Augustinian abbey in his domestic residence – Newtown Newtownards and back in a day to the 13th century – the ruins of the House – and had the priory church do business. The Market Cross in abbey church stand in one corner restored as a place of worship. The Newtownards is the second on the of the cemetery. The cemetery tower with its handsome classical site, the first having been built includes some memorials to rebels entrance was built in 1636 – under Montgomery’s direction as executed in 1798 including the year in which Sir Hugh died. a replica of the market cross in Archibald Warwick who was His funeral was along the lines Edinburgh. At the market cross hanged at Kircubbin. The Corry of an impressive Scottish state ‘all proclamations that come from mausoleum is one of three graves funeral, and he was buried within the Chief Governor of this kingdom’ at Movilla to former Provosts of these walls. Newtown House burned were issued. It bears the date 1636, Newtown - Provost being a Scottish down in 1664, but a portion of the the year that Montgomery died. term for mayor. bawn wall – from which Castlebawn (BT23 7HS) (BT23 8HH) takes its name – survives. (BT23 7NX) A&ND DUS A5 AW FINAL:Layout 1 14/01/2016 16:57 Page 6 DONAGHADEE Donaghadee was an ancient Christian site just north of Templepatrick , where centuries of local tradition say St Patrick landed in the 5th century – having sailed from Portpatrick in Scotland.