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Broughshane, Co. Antrim

Broughshane, Bruach Sheimhne, Co. Antrim

Bruach Sheimhne · Co. Antrim

The village that has won everything horticultural the British Isles can hand out.

Broughshane is a village of about three thousand people in the Braid valley, six kilometres north-east of Ballymena on the road out to the Antrim coast. The Irish name is Bruach Sheimhne - the bank of the Seimhne, the old name for the Braid. It is a mid-Antrim planters' village of the same school as Cullybackey and Ahoghill: Scots Presbyterian settlement, smallholding farms in good country, two big Presbyterian meeting houses on the rise, and the Twelfth coming through every July. What sets it apart is that, somewhere in the 1990s, the village collectively decided to take horticulture seriously and has not stopped.

The floral business is real. Broughshane has won Ulster in Bloom more times than is easily counted. It took the Britain in Bloom Champion of Champions award in 2007 and again in 2012. It has won the European Entente Florale gold. Channel 4 named it UK Village of the Year in February 2018, with the judges noting that roughly two thirds of the residents volunteer on village projects. The baskets on the lamp posts, the planters at the war memorial, the beds at Memorial Park down by the Braid - all of it is done by local volunteers under the Broughshane Improvement Group, which has been at this work for thirty years. The motto on the village signs reads "People, Plants and Pride growing Together" and the village means it.

Beyond the flowers, Broughshane is the closest village to Slemish and benefits accordingly. The mountain - really the volcanic plug of an old vent, 437 metres, visible from half of County Antrim - is the legendary site where the boy Patrick worked as a shepherd for six years in the fifth century. On St Patrick's Day, three thousand people climb it. Most of them park at the Slemish car park five kilometres east of the village, eat their sandwich at the top, and come back down through Broughshane for soup at the Thatch Inn. The rest of the year Slemish is quiet and the village goes about its business - the school, the churches, the GAA-free Saturday football, the cattle going to the marts in Ballymena.

Population
~3,067 (NISRA 2021)
Coords
54.9050° N, 6.2069° W
01 / 09

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The Garden Village of Ulster

Britain in Bloom Champion of Champions, 2007 and 2012.

Plus Ulster in Bloom, Entente Florale, and Channel 4's UK Village of the Year in 2018. The hanging baskets are not decoration. They are the local industry.

Stories & lore → 02 Slemish

St Patrick's mountain, 6km east of the village.

The eroded plug of an extinct volcano, 437m, where the boy Patrick worked six years as a shepherd. Most St Patrick's Day pilgrims start from the Broughshane side.

Walks & outings → 03 Six kilometres from Ballymena

On the A42, in the Braid valley.

Broughshane sits on the road from Ballymena out to the coast at Carnlough. A working village with a square, two Presbyterian churches, a thatched 18th-century inn and the Braid river running through.

Getting there →
02 / 09

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The Thatch Inn

Main Street institution
18th-century coaching inn

On Main Street since 1773 - a two-storey, six-bay thatched coaching inn, the oldest building in the village still doing its original job. Pub grub downstairs, Shane's Lounge restaurant upstairs for evenings and Sunday lunch. Open fire, locals at the bar, no music to drown out the talk. The default of the village.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

PlaceType€Local note
FLAX Coffee Co Café £ In the restored Raceview Mill complex at the edge of the village. Breakfast, brunch, sandwiches, traybakes, decent coffee. Dog-friendly. The mill itself is the Channel 4 award-winning regeneration project that helped the village win UK Village of the Year in 2018.
Houston's Mill Restaurant & function venue £££ Up the Buckna Road two kilometres out of the village. A converted mill doing serious dinner - fish, steak, a Sunday carvery, a wedding most weekends. Book ahead, especially Sundays.
BREW Coffee shop £ Small village coffee shop on Main Street. Sustainably sourced beans, local bakes, a couple of tables. The morning stop before the mountain.
04 / 09

Where to sleep.

PlaceTypeLocal note
Loughconnolly Bed & Breakfast B&B Out the country roads above the village, top-rated of the local B&Bs. Quiet, farmhouse views, full Ulster fry in the morning.
Quarrytown Lodge B&B Ten minutes from Ballymena, gardens and a sun terrace, en-suite rooms. Homemade bread and jams at breakfast. Used by walkers doing Slemish and the Glens.
05 / 09

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

How a village became famous for hanging baskets

Champion of Champions, twice

Broughshane started entering the Ulster in Bloom competition in the early 1990s. The Broughshane Improvement Group - a volunteer body that began with a few residents tidying verges - got organised, got serious, and got methodical. Ulster in Bloom wins came first. Then Britain in Bloom category wins, year after year. Then, in 2007, Broughshane won the Britain in Bloom Champion of Champions award - the prize handed to the single best entry from across the previous five years of category winners across the United Kingdom. The village won it again in 2012, the only Northern Ireland community to take it twice. Along the way it also won the European Entente Florale gold and, in February 2018, Channel 4's UK Village of the Year, presented by Penelope Keith, with a £10,000 prize. The judges that year highlighted that close to two-thirds of residents were involved in village voluntary work. Drive into Broughshane in July and you see what thirty years of organised civic pride looks like. It is not a tourism set-piece. It is what the village does because it decided to.

Field Marshal, Ladysmith, Broughshane churchyard

Sir George White VC

George Stuart White was born in Portstewart in 1835 but the family home was in Broughshane and he is buried in Broughshane First Presbyterian churchyard, with a monument on the village street to mark him. He won the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Charasiab in Afghanistan in 1879 for leading a small force up a hill against a much larger Afghan position. The fame, though, came twenty years later. In late 1899, at the start of the Second Boer War, White was the British commander besieged at Ladysmith. The siege lasted 118 days. Ladysmith held. White was made a peer, became Governor of Gibraltar, and was promoted to Field Marshal in 1903 - the highest rank in the British Army. He died in 1912 and was brought home to be buried in the Presbyterian churchyard in his village. The Broughshane Community Museum on Main Street tells the story in more detail; it is run by volunteers and opens at limited hours, so check before you visit.

The shepherd, the mountain, the 17th of March

Slemish and St Patrick

Tradition has it that the boy who became St Patrick was brought as a slave from Roman Britain around the year 405 and sold to a man named Milchu, who set him to keep sheep on Slemish mountain east of Broughshane. He spent six years on the mountain - cold, hungry, praying - before escaping back to Britain, becoming a priest, and returning to convert the Irish. Whether or not the details hold up, Slemish has been the focus of the Patrick story in the north-east for over a thousand years. It is a sharp, distinctive cone of a mountain - really the eroded plug of an extinct volcano - 437 metres high, visible across half of mid-Antrim. The path up is steep, rocky, and short: a kilometre and a half round, an hour up and down, no shelter at the top. On St Patrick's Day, the 17th of March, around three thousand people climb it. The car park fills early, the local Civil Defence run a tea van, and the line of climbers goes up the cone like a slow procession. Broughshane is the closest village; most pilgrims pass through.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Slemish From the Slemish car park on the Buckna Road, 5km east of the village. Steep, rocky, exposed - no path so much as a worn line up the cone. Boots, not trainers. Wind at the top can be serious. On a clear day you can see the Mournes, the Sperrins, and across to the Mull of Kintyre. On St Patrick's Day, expect crowds.
1.5 km returndistance
1 hourtime
Broughshane river and village circular An easy loop along the Braid river from Memorial Park out into the country and back through the village. Takes in the floral displays, the war memorial, both Presbyterian meeting houses, and the path along the river. Flat, family-friendly, dogs welcome.
5 kmdistance
1h 15mtime
07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring
Mar-May

St Patrick's Day on Slemish is the big day - 17 March, expect 3,000 climbers and a packed village afterwards. April and May the floral displays are going in.

◉ Go
Summer
Jun-Aug

Peak Bloom season. The hanging baskets, beds and planters are at their best in July and August. Long evenings, the Braid valley at its greenest. The village hosts garden tours through the summer.

◉ Go
Autumn
Sep-Oct

Quieter, the flowers winding down, the back roads to the Glens at their best in October light. Slemish without the crowds.

◉ Go
Winter
Nov-Feb

Dark by four, much of the floral colour gone, the Thatch in winter mode. Sundays observed. The mountain is still climbable but check the forecast - exposed and slippery in ice.

◐ Mind yourself
08 / 09

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

×
Climbing Slemish in trainers and a t-shirt

It looks like a hill. It is a 437m volcanic plug with no shelter and weather that turns. People get hurt every year and the local mountain rescue have a quiet word for the unprepared. Boots, jacket, water.

×
Expecting the village to perform horticulture for visitors

The flowers are there because the residents put them there for themselves. There is no Bloom visitor centre, no themed café, no garden gift shop. Walk the village, look at the work, buy something at the Thatch. That is the deal.

×
Coming on Sunday for a busy day out

This is mid-Antrim and the Sabbath is observed. The Thatch does Sunday lunch and that is most of what is going on. Shops largely closed. Plan for a Saturday or a weekday.

×
Driving past on the way to the Glens without stopping

It is a ten-minute walk from one end of the village to the other and the village earns the ten minutes. The war memorial, the riverside, the Thatch, Sir George White's monument. Pull in.

+

Getting there.

By car

Six kilometres north-east of Ballymena on the A42 (Carnlough road). Belfast is 50 minutes on the M2 then the A36. Larne is 35 minutes east. Slemish car park is five kilometres east of the village on the Buckna Road.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus 128 runs Ballymena to Carnlough through Broughshane several times a day on weekdays, thinner at weekends. Ballymena bus and rail station is the main interchange for anything further.

By train

Nearest station is Ballymena, on the Belfast-Derry line, six kilometres south-west. Buses and taxis from there.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is 40 minutes south. Belfast City (BHD) is 50 minutes.

Next on the tour

Co. Antrim
Ballymena
Six kilometres south-west. The mid-Antrim market town, the Braid Centre museum, the marts and the supermarket, and the rail link to Belfast and Derry.
Co. Antrim
Cullybackey
Fifteen minutes west, the other side of Ballymena. Another mid-Antrim mill village on a river, with the Arthur ancestral home and the back road to Ahoghill.
Co. Antrim
Ahoghill
Twenty minutes south-west. The home parish of Ian Paisley and a sister village in the mid-Antrim Presbyterian belt.