placenamesBelvoir Park
Páirc Bíobhair
Belvoir’s estate landscape preserves a medieval mound, family burial ground and later recreational uses beside the Lagan.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Páirc Bíobhair · Irish · main form · validated name
- Belvoir Park · English · main form
Place & story
An estate becomes a forest park
Belvoir Park Forest opened in 1961 on the southern bank of the River Lagan. Its seventy-five hectares preserve parts of an estate enclosed by the Hill family around the 1740s. The former house stood where the forest car park was later laid out, while surviving estate buildings had agricultural functions. A twelfth-century Norman motte predates the demesne. An eighteenth-century ice house built into its side illustrates how the later estate reused an older feature of the landscape. [2]
The Dungannon mausoleum
The wooded burial ground at Breda occupies the site of a medieval church. Within it, Arthur Hill-Trevor’s family mausoleum was built between his elevation as Viscount Dungannon in 1765 and his death in 1771. The official building survey describes a brick barrel vault fronted in dressed sandstone. Its classical pediment and ornamental urns have been lost. The tomb connects the estate’s eighteenth-century owners with a place that had already served as a religious and burial site for centuries. [3]
The golf club’s beginnings
A meeting in Newtownbreda in December 1926 approved the formation of Belvoir Park Golf Club. Belfast’s Lord Mayor, Sir William Turner, chaired the committee and became its first captain. Lord Deramore provided land from the family estate on a long lease and opened the course in June 1929, when Turner struck the first shot. Course architect Harry Colt was appointed on the advice of Anthony Babington. The club’s history records how a portion of the demesne acquired a new sporting purpose. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Belvoir Park. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Belvoir Park Forest · Forest Service, nidirect
- Belvoir Mausoleum, HB25/16/014 · Department for Communities, Northern Ireland
- Club History · Belvoir Park Golf Club
- Belvoir Park Forest illustration: based on a Belvoir forest, Belfast (3) by Albert Bridge. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.