The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum covers an area of about two hundred acres, it was inaugurated in 1964 and was the first folk park to be established in the British Isles, it is a fitting monument to the pioneering spirit and effort of E Estyn Evans its founder. Historic buildings from all over Ulster have been purchased, dismantled and taken to Cultra where they were meticulously rebuilt. There is a reconstruction of an entire village, complete with shops and a pub, spread throughout the grounds are farms, farm buildings, three water mills, several churches, blacksmith shops, one of the farms featured recently (2005) in a TV documentary, Century Farm.

A walk through the grounds of the museum is to be transported back in time, you can easily imagine yourself in countryside of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, as you come across farmhouses where the attendants are dressed in period costume, often you can purchase stews and other traditional food cooked on a turf fire. You can experience the sights and smells of agricultural life, animals such as pigs, sheep, cattle and horses are kept on some of the farms. Crops are grown on some of the land using the implements and methods used in the past. Elsewhere you can see craft demonstrations such as spinning and basket weaving.

The main building which has a rather modern appearance houses a wonderful array of artifacts depicting agricultural and domestic life in Ireland in times past. There is a selection of farm implements and tools, as well as some excellent models, such as a threshing machine driven by a steam engine.

Crossing the main Belfast to Bangor road via a footbridge you will find the Ulster Transport Museum. All facets of transport are covered, we just couldn't begin to list them all, there is everything from the huge steam locomotive Maeve to penny farthing bicycles, and even a Trading schooner 'Result'.

The Result was in her time regarded as the most beautiful and able trading schooners of her time, she was built across Belfast Lough in Carrickfergus and launched in 1893. She had a long successful and eventful life, serving in The First World War with The Royal Navy as the Q23 after which she returned to the coastal trade. Later she featured in a film made of Joseph Conrad's book "Outcast of the Islands" for this she had her origional rig restored. Among those who walked the decks of The Result, renamed Flash for the film were Sir Ralph Richardson and Trevor Howard, visit the following link for an indepth article on The Result.

Sadly the old sailing fishing vessel 'Mary Joseph' which was a Nicki Boat, formerly owned by Jim Pat Curran, of Kilkeel Co Down seems to be absent from its former position beside the The Result.

If it is your intention to visit County Down, this must surely be the star attraction, my advice to you would be don't miss it.