Clandeboye Interactive Walks
Chronicles of Clandeboye
Learn more
Based in County Down, Northern Ireland, the Clandeboye Estate sits within 2000 acres of woodlands, formal gardens, lawns, farmland and lakes, and is home to one of the largest native woodlands in Ireland. First settled in 1674, Clandeboye was originally named Ballyleidy, after the town in which it lay.
The current Clandeboye House was built for the 2nd Baron Dufferin in 1801–1804 to a design by Robert Woodgate, apprentice to the eminent architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837). The house was named after the former Gaelic Irish territory of Clandeboye, which covered large parts of north County Down and south County Antrim.
Clandeboye Estate is one of the few landed estates in Northern Ireland that has been in the same family ownership since the seventeenth century and much of its extensive archive relates directly or indirectly to the evolution of the landscape and the communities that lived and live on it.
The Chronicles of Clandeboye
The Chronicles of Clandeboye is a series of spatial narratives exploring the history of Clandeboye’s landscape. Developed by Newcastle University PhD student John Witchell, Chronicles combines GIS mapping with layers of historic maps and archives to produce a deep map, a three dimensional spatial and historical narrative of the estate’s rich legacy.
Visit Chronicles of Clandeboye to explore the evolution of the Clandeboye landscape over four centuries, discover the history of the Blackwood family who lived at Clandeboye from 1674 until 2020, and uncover Lord Dufferin’s Sea Park and the origins of Helen’s Bay.
You can read or listen to Chronicles of Clandeboye on your device, or you can follow the links to the Echoes App and listen to them as you walk through the estate. Each story will be linked to your smart phone by GPS and will play automatically when you walk to its location.
Visit the Echoes app to discover the Chronicles of Clandeboye walks or download the app below.
Research Programmes

Connecting Cultures
A collaborative project revealing how historic sites can position themselves as global crossroads, enabling multiple global publics to connect their lived experience with them.

Diplomacy and Treaties
International collaboration revealing globally significant cultures of diplomacy between the Crown, the Haudenosaunee and their neighbours in North America.

Digital Storytelling
Digital resources that involve the public, advance research, energise teaching, and drive knowledge exchange, built in partnership with the UK’s foremost research software engineers.

Resource Use and Environmental Futures
Water Cultures in Conflict at Pebble Mine, Bristol Bay, Alaska

Political Ecologies
Timely interventions that examine the power relations between Indigenous actors and the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

Completed Projects
Timely interventions that examine the power relations between Indigenous actors and the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.