Saintfield, Co. Down

01 / 08

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 battle

First United Irish victory in the north.

On 9 June 1798 a rebel force ambushed the York Fencibles in the wooded demesne south of the village. The redcoats lost three officers and around fifty men. A week later it was over at Ballynahinch.

Stories & lore → 02 Rowallane

A plantsman's garden, not a tourist garden.

Hugh Armytage Moore spent fifty years from 1903 building it - rhododendrons from Himalayan seed, a rock garden carved out of a whinstone outcrop, a walled garden that peaks in May. National Trust since 1955.

Walks & outings → 03 Main Street

Three antiques shops in a row.

Agar, David Flynn, and Attic sit at 90-92 Main Street, all open Tuesday to Saturday. People drive from Belfast to mooch. Bring cash and a small car.

Stories & lore →

02 / 08

The pubs.

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

The White Horse Inn

Local, steady

Coaching inn, bar & bistro

49-53 Main Street. Two-hundred-plus-year-old coaching inn that pours Whitewater Brewery on draught and does proper pub food upstairs. The Flaming Crust pizzeria runs out of the same building downstairs - wood-fired oven, a different proposition entirely. The default pint in the village.

03 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
The White Horse Inn	Gastro pub	€€	Bistro food upstairs at the coaching inn - dry-aged local sirloin, fish off the boat at Ardglass, the kind of menu that doesn't try to be more than it is.
Flaming Crust	Wood-fired pizzeria	€€	Downstairs at the White Horse. Sourdough base, proper oven, the pizza the teenagers come into Saintfield from Crossgar and Killyleagh for.
Saints Cafe	Cafe & lunch	€	11-15 Main Street. Soup-and-sandwich done well, eat-in or takeaway, the kind of breakfast that gets you through an antiques crawl and into the garden.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

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

9 June 1798

The Battle of Saintfield

It started the night before, when a rebel party went to the McKee house outside the village. The McKees were loyalists who had informed on Reverend Birch's United Irish branch the previous year. A fiddler called Orr got up the back wall with a ladder and set the thatch alight. Eight McKees died inside. The next morning Colonel Granville Stapylton marched out of Comber with 270 York Fencibles, the Newtownards Yeomanry cavalry and two light cannon. The rebels were waiting in the demesne woods south of the village - a hedge on one side of the road, rising ground on the other. They came down with pikes before the redcoats could form line. Stapylton got the cannon working and the canister and grapeshot did what canister and grapeshot do, but by then he'd lost three officers, five sergeants and the best part of fifty men, and he pulled back to Comber for the night. The rebels held Saintfield. A week later the same army crushed them at Ballynahinch and the village was burnt. The Memorial Garden on Main Street marks the dead on both sides.

The minister who founded the branch

Thomas Ledlie Birch

Birch was the Presbyterian minister of First Saintfield from 1776. In 1792 he convened the Saintfield branch of the Society of United Irishmen in his own church - Presbyterian radicalism was the engine of the 1798 rebellion in Down, not Catholic grievance. He survived the battle, was arrested, and eventually shipped to America, where he died a country minister in Pennsylvania. The church he preached in is still on Main Street. The building dates from 1777. The congregation goes back to 1658.

Two Moores and fifty years

Rowallane

The Reverend John Moore bought 507 acres of poor whinstone hillside in 1858 and started planting trees on it. He had no children. He left the place to his nephew Hugh Armytage Moore, who took possession in 1903 and spent the next fifty-one years turning it into one of the great gardens of these islands. Hugh travelled - or paid people to travel - and brought back seed from the great plant-hunting expeditions to China and the Himalaya. The walled garden, the rock garden carved out of the natural outcrop, the rhododendron wood - all his. He died in 1954. The Ulster Land Fund bought it the year after and handed it to the National Trust. The garden has been open ever since.

Why Belfast comes south on a Saturday

The antiques row

Three shops on the same fifty-yard stretch of Main Street - Agar at 92, David Flynn at 90, Attic in a unit at the same address. Furniture, ceramics, jewellery, light fittings, the occasional thing you didn't know you needed. All three are open Tuesday to Saturday, 11 to 5. People drive down from Belfast for a morning, do the three of them, eat in Saints, drive home. The shops have been there long enough that the dealers know each other's stock - if Agar hasn't got it, they'll tell you next door does.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

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

Rowallane Garden A mile south of the village on the A7. National Trust. Open year-round, peaks May-June for the rhododendrons and meconopsis, autumn for the acers. Walled garden, rock garden, pleasure grounds, a woodland walk that adds an hour. The cafe in the courtyard does decent coffee.

52 acres, miles of pathsdistance

1.5-3 hourstime

Saintfield Memorial Garden On Main Street, beside First Saintfield Presbyterian Church. The names of the rebels who fell on 9 June 1798 and the Crown soldiers they killed, on the same set of stones. Stand for a minute. The village was burnt around this spot.

5-minute walkdistance

15 minutestime

The Main Street stroll Top to bottom past the three antiques shops, the White Horse, the two churches, the bakery. The village is small enough that you cannot get lost and slow enough that you will end up in a conversation about a clock.

600 metresdistance

20 minutes if you behave, 2 hours if you do nottime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Rowallane comes alive - magnolias in March, rhododendrons through April and May, meconopsis in late May. The garden is the reason you are here this time of year.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings, the borders at full pelt, the village in shirtsleeves. The Saintfield Horse Show (mid-July, since 2009) brings a real crowd for a weekend.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The acers in the garden turn and the village settles. The honest season - antiques rooms in the quiet, a pint by the fire in the White Horse.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Garden is open but pared back. The antiques shops keep going. Bring a coat and a reason.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

×

Weekend brunch on Main Street

Saturday morning is when half of south Belfast drives down for the antiques. The cafes fill by ten. Come midweek or eat early.

×

Driving the A7 in Belfast rush hour

Saintfield is a commuter village. 7:30-9am inbound and 4:30-6:30pm outbound is a slow crawl back to the M1. Time the trip around it.

×

Rowallane on a coach tour stop

It is a garden that rewards an hour at a slow pace, not a fifteen-minute walk to the rose lawn. If you only have a quarter of an hour, do something else.

×

Looking for a Battle of Saintfield monument on the battlefield itself

The site is private land out the Comber road. The Memorial Garden on Main Street is where the village does its remembering. That is the right place to go.

+

Getting there.

By car

Belfast city centre to Saintfield is 25 minutes on the A7 outside rush hour. Downpatrick is 20 minutes further south on the same road. Comber is 10 minutes north.

By bus

Ulsterbus 15 / 215 / 515 Belfast (Europa) to Downpatrick stops on Main Street, frequent service Mon-Sat. The 15 is the slow one (calls everywhere); the 215 is the express.

By train

No train. Northern Ireland Railways does not serve this side of Down. Nearest station is Belfast.

By air

Belfast City (BHD) is 25 minutes by car. Belfast International (BFS) is 45 minutes.

Saintfield, Tamhnaigh Naomh, Co. Down

Antiques row, a Presbyterian church older than the United States, and the first rebel win of 1798.

At a glance.

First United Irish victory in the north.

A plantsman's garden, not a tourist garden.

Three antiques shops in a row.

The pubs.

The White Horse Inn

Where to eat.

Stories & lore.

The Battle of Saintfield

Thomas Ledlie Birch

Rowallane

The antiques row

Things to do outside.

When to go.

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

Getting there.

Next on the tour