Belvoir Park used to belong to a plantation family but it’s now open for walkers and bird watchers to enjoy.
Belvoir Park is a working forest within a city, which makes it unique among parks in the UK. It’s where the RSPB have their Northern Ireland Headquarters, and it’s not hard to see why: the forest has lots of birds and you can even spot red squirrels there on a good day. The Forest opened in 1961 and runs along the south bank of the River Lagan, connecting to the Lagan River Towpath and the Lagan Valley Regional Park which gACoes towards Lisburn.
See if you can find the 12th-century Norman motte and you’ll also stumble upon the ice-house, which was built when the land belonged to the Hills family, who enclosed the park during the Plantation of Ulster.