Rostrevor Forest is located near the village of

Rostrevor Rostrevor () is a village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the foot of Slieve Martin on the coast of Carlingford Lough, near Warrenpoint. The Kilbroney River flows through the village and Rostrevor Forest is nearby. ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, Northern Ireland. It lies between the

Mourne Mountains The Mourne Mountains ( ; ga, Beanna Boirche), also called the Mournes or Mountains of Mourne, are a granite mountain range in County Down in the south-east of Northern Ireland. They include the highest mountains in Northern Ireland, the high ...

and

Carlingford Lough Carlingford Lough (, Ulster Scots: ''Carlinford Loch'') is a glacial fjord or sea inlet in northeastern Ireland, forming part of the border between Northern Ireland to the north and the Republic of Ireland to the south. On its northern shore i ...

, in the Mourne Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The first trees, primarily

sitka spruce ''Picea sitchensis'', the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to almost tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth-larg ...

douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three va ...

and pine, were planted in 1931. The Forest Service carries out felling in the forest and replants trees with wildlife conservation in mind. Animal species found in the forest include red and grey squirrels, foxes, badgers,

jay A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family (biology), family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For examp ...

s and sparrow hawks.

Features

A 40-tonne granite boulder, known as the

Cloughmore Cloughmore or Cloghmore (), known locally as "The Big Stone", is a huge granite boulder perched on a mountainside almost above the village of Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland. It sits on the slopes of Slieve Martin in Kilbroney Park, o ...

Stone or The Big Stone, is located on the top of a hill within the forest. It was deposited there approximately 10,000 years ago when the glacial ice sheet receded. The local legend states that the stone was thrown across

from the top of the Cooley Mountains, by the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill. Rostrevor Oakwood is a area of 250-year-old

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

trees within the forest. They are the remains of the oak woods that were present on the lower Mourne mountains until it was mostly felled for use in boat building in the 18th and 19th centuries. The area is protected as a Special Area of Conservation. A clearing on the southern edge of the oakwood is known as Fiddler's Green and was at one time a gathering point in the village and would have featured various forms of entertainment. Every July since 1986, the village has hosted a traditional music festival named the Fiddler’s Green Festival. One of the trees in the oakwood, was omitted from an environmental survey for nearby construction work and threatened with damage. The oak subsequently became known as the Invisible Tree and was voted Northern Ireland's Tree of the Year for 2019. File:Bilingual welcome sign Rostrevor.jpg, Rostrevor Forest from the west end of

File:Cloughmore Stone.jpg, Cloughmore Stone

References

{{Forests and woodlands of Northern Ireland Forests and woodlands of Northern Ireland