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CLOUGH

CO. DOWN · IE

Clough
An Chloch

The Mourne, Gullion & Strangford
STOP 03 / 06

An Chloch · Co. Down

A crossroads village under a Norman motte, with three roads doing all the work.

Clough is not a destination. It is a junction. The A2 coming up from Newcastle meets the A24 coming down from Belfast meets the A25 coming over from Castlewellan, and the three of them sort themselves out on a small roundabout with a stainless-steel cow on it. Most of the traffic in mid-Down passes through here. Most of the traffic in mid-Down does not stop.

What's worth stopping for is the mound above the village — Clough Castle, a 7.6-metre Anglo-Norman motte put up by John de Courcy at the end of the 12th century, with a stone keep added later and a tower house on top of that. It's in state care, it's free, and you can climb it. From the summit you can see why a Norman knight planted a fort here in 1180: the road from Downpatrick, the road from Dundrum, the road from the Mournes, all of them in one view. The trick that worked for him still works for the lorries.

Beyond the castle, Clough is small. Three hundred people, a café, a Presbyterian church, a primary school, the Moo. Seaforde and its garden are a mile north up the A24; Dundrum and its bay are five minutes south on the A2; the Mournes loom out the back window. Build a day around the neighbours and use Clough as the pivot. That's what the crossroads is for.

Population

Under 300

Walk score

A crossroads and a castle mound. Five minutes end to end.

Founded

Anglo-Norman motte at the crossroads, late 12th century

Coords

54.2833° N, 5.8333° W

01 / 07

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 castle

A 25-foot motte with a tower house on top.

Clough Castle is the reason the village exists. An Anglo-Norman motte-and-bailey built by John de Courcy in the late 12th century, with a small stone keep added in the 13th and rebuilt as a tower house in the late 15th. The keep still stands two storeys high. State care, free access, climb the mound.

Stories & lore → 02 The crossroads

Where the A2, A24 and A25 meet.

Three trunk roads converge at a single roundabout in the middle of the village — Belfast traffic on the A24, the Newcastle coast road on the A2, and the Castlewellan–Downpatrick road on the A25. Most people pass through. The trick is to stop.

Getting there → 03 The Moo

A stainless-steel cow on the roundabout.

'On the Way to the Fair' was put up in 2011 by the Dungannon sculptor Darren Sutton. A farmer driving a beast to market. It marks the cattle-fair days that died out here in the late 1940s when the lorries arrived. Locally, just 'the Moo'.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
French's Cafe & Bistro	Cafe & bistro	€€	2A Castlewellan Road, on the village side of the roundabout. Cafe by day, bistro Friday and Saturday evenings, Sunday lunch through to mid-afternoon. Fish and chips, burgers, roasts, breakfasts that mean breakfast. The only restaurant in the village and it knows it; the locals don't seem to mind.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

Late 12th century

John de Courcy planted a fort here

De Courcy was the Anglo-Norman knight who rode north out of Dublin in January 1177 with about twenty knights and three hundred footmen and took Downpatrick off the last king of Ulaid. He spent the next twenty-odd years bolting forts onto the landscape to hold what he'd taken — Carrickfergus, Dundrum, Inch, and a small motte at the crossroads at Clough. The mound is still there. He is not.

What the spade found on top

The 1950 dig

Excavation on the summit in 1950 turned up the timber palisade that had ringed the top of the motte in the late 12th or early 13th century, pits interpreted as positions for archers, and the foundations of a rectangular timber hall built in the mid-13th century. Later in the same century a small stone keep went up on the south-west side, two storeys, of which a substantial chunk still stands. The Department for Communities conserved the masonry in 1981–82. It is the surviving keep, perched on the older mound, that gives Clough Castle its distinctive double-decker silhouette.

A small fort with a big one a few miles south

The outpost of Dundrum

Clough is usually read as an outwork of de Courcy's much larger castle at Dundrum, four kilometres down the A2, which guarded the entrance to the Lecale peninsula and his Anglo-Norman lordship of Ulster. The pair of them — the small motte at the crossroads and the great curtain-walled rock above Dundrum Bay — controlled the road into Lecale between them. Standing on the motte at Clough you can almost see the line.

The cow on the roundabout

On the Way to the Fair

The stainless-steel sculpture in the middle of the village is called 'On the Way to the Fair' and is the work of the Dungannon sculptor Darren Sutton, erected in 2011. It depicts a farmer driving a single beast to market and commemorates the cattle fairs that ran at this crossroads for over a hundred years and faded out in the late 1940s, when lorries replaced the long walk. The villagers just call it the Moo.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Clough Castle motte Park beside the roundabout, walk in past the gate, take the path up the mound. The summit gives you the surviving stub of the 13th-century keep, the line of the bailey ditch on the south-east side, and the three roads laid out below. State care, free, daylight hours. Check the noticeboard for fencing works.

300 m and a climbdistance

20 mintime

Slieve Croob from Finnis Drive twenty minutes north-west to the small car park above Finnis and walk up the transmitter road to the 534-metre summit. The cairn on top is called the Twelve Cairns. Source of the River Lagan. On a clear day, the whole of Down and a fair slice of Antrim are at your feet.

4 km returndistance

1.5–2 hourstime

Murlough National Nature Reserve Ten minutes south on the A2, between Dundrum and Newcastle. A 6,000-year-old dune system, 697 acres of dune heath managed by the National Trust since 1967 — Ireland's first nature reserve. Boardwalks through the dunes, a four-mile shingle beach, the Mournes filling the sky. Closed-toe shoes; the boardwalks get slick.

3–6 km of pathsdistance

1.5–3 hourstime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

The castle mound is greenest and the views to the Mournes sharpest. Seaforde Gardens, a mile north, reopens at Easter. A good base for an unhurried day.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

The roundabout becomes the bottleneck for half of mid-Down on its way to Newcastle. Avoid 4–6pm on a sunny Sunday unless you enjoy queuing in a Vauxhall.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The light is better, the traffic eases off after the August bank holiday, and Slieve Croob in October mist is worth the drive on its own.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Mountpanther Farm Park, Seaforde Gardens and the butterfly house are all shut. The castle is still climbable on a bright day. French's is still open for soup. The rest is grey.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Treating Clough as a destination on its own

It is not. It is a base of one or a stop of twenty minutes. Build the day around Seaforde, Dundrum and Murlough and use the village as the hub.

Looking for a pub in Clough

There isn't really one. Drink in Castlewellan, Newcastle or Dundrum. The nearest proper village pub is up the road.

Driving the roundabout faster than the painted lines suggest

Three trunk roads, one mini-roundabout, lorries from every direction. The mini-roundabout is genuinely confusing for visitors. Slow down.

Getting there.

By car

On the meeting of the A2 (Belfast–Newcastle coast road), the A24 (Belfast–Newcastle inland) and the A25 (Castlewellan–Downpatrick). Belfast is 50 minutes north on the A24. Newcastle is 15 minutes south on the A2. Downpatrick is 15 minutes east on the A25.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus 17 (Belfast–Newcastle via Ballynahinch and Clough) stops on the village street. Several services a day, fewer at weekends. Service 18 (Newcastle–Downpatrick) runs through on the A25.

By train

No train. Nearest railhead is Belfast Lanyon Place; then bus.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is about 1 hour. Belfast City (BHD) is 50 minutes. Dublin is 2 hours.