Stormont Estate
The Stormont Estate is an estate east of Belfast in County Down. It is the site of Northern Ireland's main government buildings, which are surrounded by woods and parkland. The Estate is a public park with beautiful gardens, walking and fitness trails and children’s play park. The Estate has recently been recognised as one of Northern Ireland’s best green spaces with the prestigious Green Flag award.
Lying within the townland of Ballymiscaw, Stormont was originally the estate of a Rev. John Cleland. Around the estate, you will also find historic buildings, statues, memorials and some interesting WW2 sites, including the original barrage balloon anchors that held the balloons protecting the government buildings from bombings during the war.
Opening Hours
The Stormont Estate opening times vary throughout the year but in general reflect daylight hours. At each entrance there is signage that indicates the opening times, please do not look for this cache outside of the opening hours.
Dogs
Dog owners have access to a special enclosed part of the estate, called ‘The Bullfield’ where dogs can be off the leash and owners can take advantage of the picnic tables and seating.
Parkrun
Please note, Stormont Estate is now home to the Stormont Parkrun every Saturday morning so will be busy at this time.
Getting there
The estate is in the east of Belfast, on the Upper Newtownards Road (A20). When travelling along the Upper Newtownards Road, the large entrance to the estate is visible on the left, about five miles from the city centre. A second entrance for the public on foot is available at Massey Avenue, Belfast BT4.
Parking is available in front of the main gates on the Upper Newtownards Road, at the Massey Avenue entrance and in the play park car park located on the left about 100m after the main gates to Stormont Estate. (see parking waypoints)
Stormont's Stones
Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be predominantly white, pink, or gray in color, depending on their mineralogy. The word "granite" comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a holocrystalline rock.
Granite is nearly always massive (lacking any internal structures), hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use throughout human history as a construction stone.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Most limestones have a granular texture. Their constituent grains range in size from 0.001 mm (0.00004 inch) to visible particles. In many cases, the grains are microscopic fragments of fossil animal shells.
About 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, in which water erodes the limestone over thousands to millions of years.
Limestone has numerous uses: as a building material, an essential component of concrete (Portland cement), as aggregate for the base of roads, as white pigment or filler in products such as toothpaste or paints, as a chemical feedstock for the production of lime, as a soil conditioner, or as a popular decorative addition to rock gardens.
At the waypoints listed you will find three stones (at 1 and 2, it is the plinth the sculpture sits on). In order to log this Earthcache, please answer the following questions and send the answers to me via the message center:
1. At each waypoint please tell me what type of stone is present and explain why you think this.
2. Describe the texture of each of the stones.
3. At the posted coordinates the names of four cities are visible, please tell me which one is carved vertically.
4. On a wooden post near the posted coordinateds there is an information panel, please tell me the number on the panel.
Please do not wait to log your find. I will contact you if there is any problem with your answers. Please do not post your answers in your log.