Castlerock

Sea Road: Pub and Railway

Bertha's Bar stands at 6 Sea Road, about a hundred and forty metres from the railway platform, which tells you most of what you need to know about how Castlerock is laid out. It is the village pub, with a beer garden round the side. Dishes served there have included burgers, fish and chips, and a Sunday roast of turkey and ham with vegetables, mash, roast potato, Yorkshire pudding and gravy.

The station is on Sea Road too, an unmanned halt on the Derry~Londonderry line with ramp access to both platforms, a ticket machine and some sheltered seating, but no car park and no toilets. Michael Palin once called the run towards Derry "one of the most beautiful rail journeys in the world," and it helped shape the village into what it is today.

Rails, Villas and Village Food

Before the Londonderry–Coleraine line opened in 1853, Castlerock was a small cluster of houses by the shore. The railway company then encouraged people to build here with "villa tickets": ten years of free first-class travel for anyone who put up a villa. The result was houses like Seawell House, Craiglea and Atlantic Lodge, as the railway turned the settlement into a seaside resort.

Sea Road still carries the food. The Giggling Goose, a small-batch bakery Alison opened in 2022, sells Guinness wheaten, seafood chowder, scones and jars of orange-and-whiskey marmalade and chilli jam. A few doors along, the Village Kitchen does filled baps and the full Village Fry with tea or freshly ground coffee. Beside the station, the ROCK Craft & Coffee combines home-baked traybakes and Morelli's ice cream with a gallery of work by local makers: photography, jewellery, knitwear, soaps and candles.

Chocolate, Sand and Links

On Main Street, the Chocolate Manor runs hands-on workshops under Chief Chocolatier Geri Martin, including Choccy Rocky birthday sessions for children from age five. It won Best Food and Drink Experience at the 2022 Giant Spirit Awards.

The beach is a kilometre of sand between the Downhill cliffs to the west and the Lower Bann estuary to the east, with Inishowen showing across the water on a clear day. There are boardwalks, promenade parking, toilets and seasonal lifeguards. The concrete Barmouth pier marks the estuary end, where the right-hand wave is suited to experienced surfers. The golf course sits on the dunes just east of the beach entrance: an 18-hole Mussenden links and a nine-hole Bann course, and the clubhouse bar welcomes visitors in for a meal and a pint of Guinness after a round.

The Earl Bishop's Demesne

West of the village the ground rises into Downhill Demesne. The Bishop's Gate trail makes a two-mile circuit through gardens and clifftop to Downhill House and Mussenden Temple, the round library that Frederick Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, commissioned from the architect Michael Shanahan around 1783. One story has the Earl Bishop making his clergy run a leapfrog race on the beach to decide who got the best parish. His house was gutted by fire in 1851 and later had its roof removed, and it stands roofless above the sea.

Church, Cottages and Shipwrecks

Back in the village, Christ Church dates from 1870, the work of the London architect Frederick William Porter and considered the finest of his churches. Above the shore, the Twelve Apostles are a terrace of basalt labourers' cottages from 1882. At the Barmouth, where more than twenty-five ships have come to grief over the years, harbour porpoises and seals still come in to feed.