Minnowburn

Minmowburn is a pleasant woodland and meadow walk. Leaving the carpark you can follow the Minnowburn stream through young native woodland up to Terrace Hill. This garden is the perfect place for a picnic with stunning views over the lagan valley.

The trail from here crosses over the Sandpit field and leads to the Giants Ring. This prehistoric earthwork in the townland of Ballynahatty lies only five miles from Lisburn and four miles from the centre of Belfast. Today it dominates the Lagan Valley Regional Park from its isolated sandy plateau caught in a loop of the River Lagan.

The big earthwork circle, roughly 200m across, is a beautiful example of a 'henge' monument, built in about 2700BC during the Neolithic period. In the middle is a tomb made up of five upright stones and a large capstone, the bare frame of what was originally a chambered grave, covered with a cairn of stones and earth.

The trail from here winds through fields past the village of Edenderry. The trail comes back down to the River Lagan through some young woodland which contains some oaks grown from acorns at Belvoir Forest downstream.