Attractions and Places To See around Trooperfield - Top 20

Wide paths through a quiet park.

The paths meander through lush greenery that makes you feel like you're far away from the city. A well-kept park that offers space for both exercise and relaxed rolling. The tree-lined avenues are particularly beautiful - perfect for cycling in the interplay of light and shadow. The route also runs along the Connswater Community Greenway, a green corridor through Belfast that beautifully connects Orangefield Park with other green areas of the city. The evening atmosphere with the play of light on the manicured lawn and the clouds over Belfast is definitely worth a moment to pause - a calm contrast to the otherwise busy city. Ideal for a relaxed ride in the early morning or to wind down in the evening without being too far away.

Nendrum Monastery was a Christian monastery founded in the 5th century. The monastery finished somewhere between 974 and 1178, but the church survived until the 15th century. You can visit the ruins if you're riding past.

This is the best example in Northern Ireland of a pre Norman ecclesiastical enclosure with its buildings. Nendrum is associated with St Mochaoi who died at the end of the 5th century, and is linked with St Patrick in a much later source. Notices of Nendrum clergy, including three bishops, begin in the 7th century and the excavation of a sophisticated tide mill on the shore near the site has shown that the mill was active in the early 7th century, which underlines the early importance of Nendrum. References continue until a fire in 976, perhaps a Viking raid, when the head of the church (erenagh) was burned in his house. In the late 12th century a small Benedictine monastic cell was founded on the site, but by 1302–1306 this was the parish church, abandoned for Tullynakill on the mainland in the 15th century. H.C. Lawlor excavated the site from 1922 to 1924, when enclosure walls, church and round tower were restored. The glacial hill is crowned with three concentric walled enclosures, irregularly oval in plan. Little is known of the outer cashel, only partly in state care. In the middle cashel on the south-west side are circular platforms for huts, which excavation suggested were craft workshops, and a rectangular building known as the ‘schoolhouse’, also a workshop. In the inner cashel were the most important buildings, including the church with its graveyard and the base of a round tower north-west of the church. The west wall of the church was rebuilt in the 1920s, incorporating a reconstructed sundial at the south-west corner. Finds from the 1920s excavation, including the well-known bell of Nendrum, are in the Ulster Museum and Down Museum at Downpatrick. Underwater archaeological work in the 1990s showed that there is a stone jetty south-east of the enclosure, now inundated in the lough, and medieval pottery was found close by. ( source: department of communities )

Perfect way to get out to Comber. Connecting easily with nearby tours of Strangford Lough and Ards. You will be amazed just how quite things get, and all only 30 minutes from Belfast.

The park has an ecotrail, outdoor gym and children's playground. The park also contains Orangefield Playing Fields with a bowling green, tennis courts, soccer pitches and a Velodrome !

The Velodrome has to be booked through Belfast City Councils webpage ( book the football pitch for entry to Velodrome ) https://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/Things-to-Do/Outdoor-leisure-activities/Sports-pitches-and-facilities/Book-a-pitch

Love spending time here. There is a park bench to the far east corner, and to the left of that hosts one of the best views of the Lough. When tides out you can see traces of the old Salmon fisheries. Its so quiet, and there is a picnic area just to the side of the visitors centre. The site also boasts fragments of an early Sun Dial that have been placed by the entrance to the Church.