The Dark Hedges
The Dark Hedges is a highly photogenic lane lined with Beech Trees, that was used as the King's Road in Game of Thrones. It's hugely popular and multiple tour buses drop loads of people here throughout the day. So, if you're on one like I was, you're not going to get one of those stunning people free photos you can find online. I couldn't get a decent picture at all. I had to buy one.
The five minute pathway leading from the parking lot to get to The Dark Hedges felt more Game of Throne-sy than the actual King's Road, but that's because they transformed the lane for filming, including use of CGI.
The pathway is more natural and looks more like the way the show made the King's Road. Nonetheless, it's a nice walk and you don't have to have seen the show to enjoy it - in fact you'd probably enjoy it more if you hadn't!
The Dark Hedges
I love old trees and these are magnificent. There was originally 150! They were planted by the Stuart family around 1775. The trees were intended to be a compelling landscape feature to impress visitors as they approached the entrance to their Georgian mansion, Gracehill House. Mission accomplished. The estate is beautiful and a little creepy, but I like that.
No old creepy estate would be complete without it's own ghost story. At The Dark Hedges, the story goes that Bregagh Road is haunted by a Grey Lady.
Legend has it, that after nightfall, the Grey Lady glides along the Bregagh Road, drifting between the ancient Beech Trees and vanishing from sight once she passes the last tree on the lane.
Some believe the ghost is a maid from a nearby house who died in mysterious circumstances hundreds of years ago. Others think she is a lost spirit from an abandoned graveyard, in the fields nearby.
A local photographer, Gordon Watson, from Ballycastle, made headlines with his photo in 2014, of what just may be the Grey Lady. What do you think??
The image was captured at the end of the trees right were she's been spotted over many years.
Kevin McAuley, another well-known local photographer, examined the photo and insists that there's no way it has been digitally enhanced.
I mean holy cow if that's real. I don't see a Grey Lady in that image, I see a banshee!
<<Back to Belfast On to Dunluce Castle>>
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