| The
road at the top of the photograph leads
to Bushmills,- at the junction you can still see the old Bayview Hotel and
Watchtower Cottage before it was demolished and replaced by a large
apartment block. C. S. Lewis is reputed to have stayed there when he visited the north coast, he spent many childhood holidays
along the north coast which became one of his favourite locations along with the Mourne
Mountains. The photo also shows the inner harbour corner before conversion into a large apartment block
as well as the old Beach Hotel, again swallowed by the apartment
syndrome. On the left
side are the distinct concentric rings of Lissanduff which dates to the Bronze
Age - the site is still to be excavated. Theories suggest the
concentric circles were used for water retention and rituals, the
elevated site was certainly used as a fort during periods of its history.
The small harbour quay is where the 12,000 artifacts from the Girona came ashore, the Belgian marine archeologist Robert Stenuit
found and excavated this Spanish Armada shipwreck in 1967/68
after it had lain untouched for 380 years. Recovered items
included gold and silver coins, jewellery, silver plate, a
bronze cannon, and eleven of twelve 'lapis lazuli' cameos,
Frank Madden, the licensee of the site, found the last cameo
more recently making the complete set Ironically, after
spending years of research in Spain, France and Belgium, Robert
Stenuit arrived at the Causeway and picked up a 1/3d guide which
refered to Port na Spaniagh as the site of a Spanish shipwreck. |
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