Designed in the Scottish Baronial style, Scrabo Tower was built in 1857 in memory of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, who died in 1854.
According to the inscription on the plaque on the wall, the tower was built ‘by his tenantry and friends’. It was designed by the architectural firm of Lanyon and Lynn and cost over £3,000 – massively over budget (even after reducing it by one storey).
Rising nearly 125 feet from the summit of Scrabo Hill, itself over 500 feet above sea
level, the tower can be seen for miles around and from it there are spectacular views, even to Scotland on a clear day. In recent decades the tower was taken into public ownership and the area around turned into a country park.
Scrabo Hill was described by William Montgomery in 1683. He wrote that –
‘... there in is the quarrey of the best freestone that may be seen anywhere... ye stones where of are well known in Dublin, and taken thither and elsewhere in great abundance...’. For centuries, Scrabo stone was a standard building material across the Ards.
Legend has it that Macananty, King of the Fairies, is buried under Scrabo Hill. In Ballads of Down (1901), Ulster-Scots poet George Francis Savage-Armstrong wrote a poem about Macananty-
‘...Frae the hill an frae the lea:
That nae mair in magic trances
Whun the silver moonbeam glances
Come the Wee-Fowk wi’ their dances...'
