Helen's Bay, Cuan Héilin, Co. Down

Cuan Héilin · Co. Down

A railway station named for a poet, a beach in a country park, and a long quiet street of nice houses in between.

Helen's Bay is a planned village that arrived with the railway. Before 1865 there was a townland called Ballygrot, a stretch of coast, a Marquess's estate inland at Clandeboye. Then the Belfast and County Down Railway laid track through Lord Dufferin's land. He took his fee in the form of a station - and not just a station. A miniature Scottish baronial castle by Benjamin Ferrey, with turrets and a private waiting room for himself, and a flight of steps down to a courtyard from which one laneway went up to Clandeboye House and the other down to the beach. He named the station for his mother, who was dying. Then he named the bay for her too.

What grew up around it is what tends to grow up around a station like that on a coast like this: long quiet roads of substantial houses, set back behind hedges, owned by people who get the train to Belfast in twenty-two minutes and home again by half six. Population fifteen hundred. One golf club, founded 1896. A small parade of shops at Station Square. The old station building itself is a day spa now. The platforms still work.

Don't come to Helen's Bay for a session or a meal - the village has neither in any quantity, and that is honest. Come for the beach, the coastal path, the country park behind it, and the architectural oddity of a railway station that thinks it is a castle. Walk in from Crawfordsburn or Holywood along the North Down Coastal Path. Stop at Grey Point Fort. Get the train home. It is a half-day, and a quiet one, and it does not pretend to be anything else.

Population

1,547 (2021 census)

Walk score

Station to beach in eight minutes downhill

Founded

Planned village around the railway station, 1865

Coords

54.6723° N, 5.7438° W

01 / 06

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 station

A Scottish baronial folly that happens to sell train tickets.

Benjamin Ferrey built it in 1863 for Lord Dufferin, who owned the land the line crossed. Turrets, a private waiting room for the Marquess, a sunken courtyard with laneways out to Clandeboye House and down to the beach. Trains still call. It is the strangest commute in Ulster.

Stories & lore → 02 The beach

Half a kilometre of sand inside a country park.

Helen's Bay Beach sits inside Crawfordsburn Country Park, gently shelving, Green Coast Award, no lifeguards. Grey Point Fort is up on the headland above, looking out to where the merchant ships still come up Belfast Lough.

Walks & outings → 03 The bay

Named for a woman who was dying.

Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin - Sheridan by birth, songwriter, poet, mother of the 1st Marquess. He named the bay and the station and the tower at Conlig for her in the years before her death in 1867. Tennyson wrote a poem. Browning, Kipling and Carlyle followed.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

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

Sheridan, Blackwood, Dufferin

Helen

Helen Selina Sheridan was a granddaughter of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. She married Price Blackwood, the 4th Baron Dufferin and Claneboye, and was widowed at thirty-four. She wrote songs that were sung across Victorian London - 'The Irish Emigrant', 'Terence's Farewell' - and held a salon and was admired and was bright. When she was dying of breast cancer in the 1860s her son Frederick, the 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, set about putting her name on the landscape: a tower at Conlig (Tennyson wrote the dedication), a railway station on his estate, the bay it overlooked. She died in 1867. The map remembers.

Ferrey, 1863

A station that thinks it is a castle

Benjamin Ferrey was an English Gothic Revival architect, a pupil of A.C. Pugin, designer of churches and a cathedral or two. The Marquess hired him to build a station at his expense on his own land, and Ferrey produced a small Scottish baronial fantasy in stone - turrets, crow-stepped gables, a private waiting room reserved for the Dufferin household. The platforms are at the foot of a cutting; a stone staircase climbs to a courtyard above; from the courtyard, two laneways lead off - one toward Clandeboye House, the other down to the sand. It is Grade A listed. The building stopped being a station in 1986 and stood derelict for years. It is now a private spa and house. The trains still stop on the platforms below.

Two guns on the Lough

Grey Point Fort

Up on the headland west of the beach sits a coastal battery built between 1904 and 1907 to defend the entrance to Belfast Lough. Two 6-inch Mark VII breech-loading guns commanded the approach; a matching battery on the far side at Kilroot closed the door. The fort was manned through both world wars and stood down in 1956. The guns are still in their emplacements. You can wander through the magazines and the gunners' quarters. The view straight up the Lough is what the gunners had - Belfast at the back of it, the ferry to Cairnryan crossing left to right, and nothing in between.

The chef before the empire

Deane's on the Square

Michael Deane opened a restaurant on the small parade of shops at Helen's Bay Station Square in 1993. He moved the operation to Howard Street in Belfast and the Belfast room won its Michelin star in 1997 - the launchpad for the brasserie-and-fine-dining empire that still bears his name. The Helen's Bay site no longer trades as a restaurant. The square is quieter for it. A pharmacy, a hairdresser, a takeaway or two. The chef moved on.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

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

North Down Coastal Path - Helen's Bay section Helen's Bay sits roughly in the middle. Walk west to Holywood (about 8 km, two and a half hours, train back). Walk east through Crawfordsburn Country Park to Bangor (about 7 km, two hours, train back). Either direction is mostly flat, sea on your left, gorse and golfers on your right.

25 km Holywood to Orlock end-to-enddistance

Half day; bite-sized sections all worktime

Crawfordsburn Country Park loop Helen's Bay Beach at one end, Crawfordsburn Beach at the other, a wooded glen with a waterfall in between, and Grey Point Fort up on the headland. Belfast's Sunday afternoon. The car park at Crawfordsburn is the busy one; park at Helen's Bay station and walk in for the quieter side.

3.5 km of park coastline plus glendistance

1.5-2 hourstime

Grey Point Fort headland Up from Helen's Bay beach onto the headland, west along the path to the fort. The guns are still there. Free admission, open weekends mainly - check before you go. The view back along the coast to the Antrim hills on a clear day is worth the climb on its own.

2 km return from the beachdistance

40 min plus however long you spend in the forttime

Helen's Bay Beach Green Coast Award. Gently shelving, good for a swim if you can handle Belfast Lough in May (you cannot; go in August). Rocky at either end. No lifeguards. Watch for seals offshore.

500 m of sanddistance

However long you havetime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The glen in Crawfordsburn Country Park does bluebells in late April. The coastal path is at its best before the school holidays land.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The beach gets busy on a hot Sunday - and Belfast does have hot Sundays. Park early or take the train in.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Big skies over the Lough, the wading birds back for the winter, the trees in the glen doing their thing. The locals' season.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The wind off the Lough is the wind off the Lough. Brent geese on the shoreline. The fort is closed. The beach is still there if you wrap up.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Looking for a pub in the village itself

There isn't really one. The Old Inn at Crawfordsburn is a twenty-minute walk; the Dirty Duck in Holywood is a short hop on the train. Helen's Bay is a quiet residential village, and pretending otherwise won't conjure a pint.

Driving in and parking near the beach on a sunny Sunday

Helen's Bay station car park fills by ten. Take the train from Belfast or Bangor - it is twenty minutes and drops you at the station above the beach. That is genuinely the village's trick.

Expecting to tour the old station building

It is a private house and spa now. The platforms below are public - admire the turrets from the train, not from the courtyard.

A separate trip to Grey Point Fort

It is a ten-minute walk from the beach along the coastal path. Roll it into the country park visit. Going twice is going once too many.

Getting there.

By car

Belfast to Helen's Bay is 25 minutes on the A2 via Holywood. Bangor is 10 minutes the other way. Parking at the station and at the country park, both fill on summer weekends.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus serves the area, but the train is faster and more frequent. Use it.

By train

Helen's Bay station on the Belfast-Bangor line. Two or three trains an hour. Belfast Lanyon Place is 22-25 minutes; Bangor is 9. The station building you see when you step off is the 1863 Ferrey original.

By air

Belfast City (BHD) is 15 minutes by car. Belfast International (BFS) is 45 minutes.

Next on the tour

Co. Down

Crawfordsburn

The other end of the country park. A 1614 inn, a glen with a waterfall, and a village street that has been used to film period drama more than once.

Co. Down

Holywood

Eight kilometres west along the coastal path. The only working maypole in Ireland, a Michelin restaurant or two, and the village Rory McIlroy grew up in.

Co. Down

Bangor

Seven kilometres east. The proper seaside town up the line - marina, pier, Pickie Funpark, and the sixth-century monastery that put the place on the map.