Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
Just south of the Belfast, in the Millionaire´s row area of Cultra, are two museums for the price of one: The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. In one, you can explore one of the most comprehensive transport collections in Europe while in the other, walk down recreated streets and buildings of Ulster as she was many years ago.
In the Transport Museum, you’ll find majestic locomotives, horse-drawn carriages, vintage motorbikes, and cars at the Ulster Transport Museum, along with exhibits of historical materials including photographs of the Titanic.
The Transport Museum creatively displays one of Europe’s largest and most comprehensive transport collections in their permanent galleries. From horse-drawn carriages to Irish built motor cars and from the mighty steam locomotives that graced our railways to the history of ship and aircraft building, the permanent galleries are well worth a visit.
On the other side of the museum area, you´ll be transported further back in time at the Ulster Folk Museum. Explore thatched cottages, farms, schools and shops as you experience life from over 100 years ago. Set in over 170 acres of rolling countryside overlooking Belfast Lough, chat to a costumed visitor guide, admire traditional crafts and meet farm animals.
The Folk Museum tells the story of life in early 20th century Ulster. A bygone era is recreated in a rural landscape of farms, cottages, traditional crops and local breeds of livestock. The permanent galleries are well worth a visit. Many of the replica and reconstructed buildings have staff dressed in period costume to explain what life was like back in the time that the building was functioning.
Some of the most popular attractions include the W & G Baird print shop is housed on the ground floor of a two-storey reproduction building, which was built specifically to support a fine 1600s roof of architectural significance from New Row in Coleraine, County Londonderry.
The Corner Shop is an original building. It was built in 1889 in Nelson Street, Irish Quarter West, Carrickfergus, County Antrim. It was dismantled and moved to the Folk Museum in the late 1980s. This shop is typical of a traditional urban corner shop from a good quality, late Victorian brick-built terrace. It continued to run the corner shop until the 1970s.
The Gilford Picture House was built in the 1850s and came from Gilford, County Down. It was dismantled and moved to the Folk Museum in 1996. The building operated as a silent cinema until 1931. The two-storey structure dates from the middle of the 1800s. It was originally used as a hay store and was later adapted for use as a cinema, shortly before the First World War. More details at: www.nmni.com/our-museums/Ulster-Folk-Museum/Home.aspx
