Moira Demesne with the Parish Church
and the Baptist church in the background |
On the village's north side, a long grassy avenue terminates
in Moira parish church, a rather top heavy but most appealing
building of 1723 where William Butler Yeats was curate in
the 1830's. The communion rails came from the staircase of
the Rawdon mansion.
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Looking down from the church, the lawns seem to continue unbroken,
into the flowerbeds and trees of the old Rawdon Demesne but
they are in fact bisected by the busy A3 trunk road. In the
summer months the entrance to the Demesne is dominated by
the magnificent (or monstrous!) iron tree - a metal structure
of hanging baskets with a riot of colourful flowers.
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Moira's
"iron" tree! |
Moira Demesne. |
Moira's long association with flowers and shrubs can be traced
back to the days of Sir Arthur Rawdon. The then occupant of
Moira Castle was commonly known as the "Father of Irish
Gardening". Sir Arthur introduced into Ireland plants
and trees from other parts of the world and was credited with
constructing the first hot house in Ireland, sometime in the
latter part of the seventeenth century. Sadly
the Castle was demolished in the nineteenth century but the
demesne remains with its fine plantation of trees now in the
care of Lisburn Borough Council.
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Heading East towards Hillsborough brings you to Berwick Hall,
a thatched yeoman's house of 1700.
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Canal, towpath and railway bridge at Moira
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The
construction of the Lagan Canal at the end of the eighteenth
century brought with it much trade to the area. This was followed
in the 1840's by the arrival of the railway, which extended
the line from Lisburn to Lurgan and Portadown. The building
of the M1 motorway in the 1960's closed the canal |
The station-house dates from 1841, and is the oldest surviving
station building in Northern Ireland. The station-house preserves
much of the original woodwork inside, while the signal-box
retains the complicated series of levers for regulating the
signals along the line which are fast being replaced everywhere
by electric signalling.
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