Qualla: Castlerock https://qualla.com/castlerock en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Castlerock https://qualla.com/castlerock Castlerock: Introduction https://qualla.com/castlerock/ Photo credit Thefifthquadrant, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Mussenden Temple stands on the cliff edge as if daring the Atlantic to come and take it. A small classical rotunda built in 1785 by the 4th Earl of Bristol - who was simultaneously the Anglican Bishop of Derry - it perches above a 120-foot basalt drop with the North Atlantic crashing white below. Erosion has been bringing the cliff closer to the temple for two centuries. The National Trust has stabilised it. The temple holds. Behind it sprawls the ruined Downhill House, another piece of episcopal extravagance from the same eccentric bishop. The village of Castlerock - 1,155 people at the last count, five miles west of Coleraine - sits below the cliff, where C.S. Lewis spent childhood holidays that may have helped shape the world he later called Narnia.

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Image: Thefifthquadrant | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/gcg1-castlerock-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Castlerock: The Earl-Bishop's Folly https://qualla.com/castlerock/ Photo credit Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, was Bishop of Derry from 1768 until his death in 1803. He was also an obsessive traveller, an art collector, and an architect of impossible ambition. Hotels across Europe still bear his name. Downhill House was his Ulster project - a vast It...

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Image: Simon Burchell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/gcg1-castlerock-the-earl-bishops-folly.mp3 0:06 2 full Castlerock: Hezlett House and the Crucks https://qualla.com/castlerock/ Photo credit Mx. Granger, CC0. Just outside the village, at a quiet crossroads, stands one of the oldest surviving thatched cottages in Northern Ireland. Hezlett House was built around 1691 - originally as a rectory or farmhouse - using a cruck-frame construction so traditional it was already considered old-fa...

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Image: Mx. Granger | CC0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/gcg1-castlerock-hezlett-house-and-the-crucks.mp3 0:06 3 full Castlerock: Lewis and the Lion https://qualla.com/castlerock/ Photo credit Z thomas, CC BY-SA 4.0. C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898, and as a boy he spent summer holidays in Castlerock. The damp Edwardian seaside, the cliffs above the strand, the ruins of Downhill House visible from the beach - these were the landscapes of his childhood imagination. Lewis would later say...

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Image: Z thomas | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/gcg1-castlerock-lewis-and-the-lion.mp3 0:06 4 full Castlerock: The Trains and the Tourists https://qualla.com/castlerock/ Photo credit Des Colhoun, CC BY-SA 2.0. Castlerock railway station opened on 18 July 1853 as part of the Belfast-Derry coast line - one of the great Victorian railway journeys, hugging the cliffs above the Atlantic for miles. NI Railways still runs hourly trains in both directions, slowing the schedule slightly for Sun...

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Image: Des Colhoun | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/gcg1-castlerock-the-trains-and-the-tourists.mp3 0:06 5 full Castlerock: Quiet Shadow https://qualla.com/castlerock/ Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Castlerock was largely untouched by the Troubles. Only one fatal incident occurred in or near the village in connection with the conflict - the 1993 Castlerock killings, when four workmen were shot in a van on Freehall Road by UDA gunmen using the Ulster Freedom Fighters cover-na...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/castlerock-wp/gcg1-castlerock-quiet-shadow.mp3 0:06 6 full