COME SEE MY NEW FAVOURITE CASTLE

World-changing history was made at Hillsborough Castle, which should be on everyone’s bucket list

This week I went to stay in a castle.

That’s the sort of sentence I still pinch myself when I write, but here we are. On Tuesday morning I hopped on a short flight from London to Belfast, and spent the next 48 hours exploring Hillsborough Castle and its gardens.

The castle is the residence of King Charles III in Northern Ireland, and has only relatively recently been opened to the public. It’s overseen by Historic Royal Palaces (the body which also looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and others) and the state rooms are full of amazing art and artefacts.

Hillsborough has a profoundly important place in modern history - it was here in 1998 that politicians hammered out the final details of the Good Friday, which brought peace to Northern Ireland.

On Tuesday evening I joined a dinner in the castle at which our guest of honour was Senator George Mitchell, the American statesman and diplomat who oversaw those talks. He is now 91 and spoke with great, moving eloquence about those historic days.

There’s so much to see at Hillsborough - and a lot that has yet to be opened to public view, including a glowering former gun-fort which looms over the road that runs past the castle’s main Georgian townhouse.

Here are my favourite bits.

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The Georgian facade

The main building at Hillsborough is palatial rather than fortified. It’s technically an Irish Big House - and the red carpet sticking its tongue out beneath the front door hints at its role as a royal residence. But it wasn’t always royal - the place was built in the eighteenth century for the Hill family who were marquesses of Downshire. It’s called a castle for a couple of reasons: firstly, because it is attached to a bona fide fortress (of which more below); secondly, because calling your house a castle sounds cool.

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The Throne Room