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Below is an extract from a1924
book published by the railway. The quote describes Dundonald
for the tourist visiting by rail. The book based on Praegar’s
1900 Guide and was titled the “Belfast & County Down Railway Company’s Official Tourist
Guide to County Down and the Mourne Mountains”. This book sought to give the tourist “an easily
grasped and up-to-date account of the city of Belfast – the starting point of tours of Down – and of the
principal towns and villages in the territory served by the Belfast and County Down Railway Company and its connections;”
Page 67
“…As we approach the station of
DUNDONALD
(dun Domhnaill, the fort of Donall, or Donald, one of the O’Neills)
– 5 miles – we see on the left the large tumulus from which the little
village takes its name. Hard by rises the square
tower of the parish church, and beside it the lofty sepulchral monument of
the Cleland family. On the right is a quarry in a boss of dolerite, which,
flowing out as molten lava on the sandstone floor, has baked the underlying
rock into a yellow quartzite. An afternoon may be well spent in examining the
antiquities of this pretty spot. Leaving the station, we cross the Comber Road, which here passes under the railway, and take a by-road
on the right. Turning almost immediately to the left up a hill, we reach the
parish church of Dundonald, and examine the great sepulchral mound. Half a mile
west of the church is the demesne of Summerfield, in which is a chalybeate
spring which was formerly in great repute. In the Presbyterian church at Dundonald is preserved a curious wrought-iron chest, which
is said to have been taken from one of the wrecked ships of the Spanish
Armada. Returning by the road by which we came, we keep straight on when we
come close to the railway, instead of crossing the bridge to the right, and
on the right in a few minutes’ time we see a fine
standing-stone close to the road. Following the road for a mile, we next
visit a large rath or earthen fort that stands
beside a farm-house a couple of hundred yards on our left. Half a mile
further on we reach the demesne of Rockfield. If we
turn to the left, after passing the gate-lodge, and cross two fields, we find
one of the finest cromleacs in County
Down, well known as the Kempe Stone.
The townload in which it stands, now called Greengraves, was formerly known as Ballycloughtogal, !the town of the raised stone. The name evidently refers
to the cromleac, and tradition says that a stranger
warrior is buried there. The present designation points to the same
tradition, Kempe
in Anglo-Saxon signifying a warrior.
From Dundonald
the railway runs for three miles down the valley of the Comber river to the
town of
COMBER
…”
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