Portpatrick – An Evening Stroll and Supper on the Harbour
A few hours.
The route
Portpatrick is a curve of painted houses round a small harbour cut into the rock, looking west across the North Channel to Ireland, whose coast you can see on a clear evening.
From the 1600s it was the packet port for the Irish mail, and an evening stroll round the harbour and out along the old pier is the nicest way to see it. Supper is at the Harbour House, a long white hotel on the harbour front with a sea-facing conservatory.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Portpatrick
A slow walk round the harbour and along the pier as the light goes over the sea to Ireland, then supper looking out over the water.
About two hoursAbout 1 mile on foot
Portpatrick
An attraction
There's free parking round the harbour in Portpatrick. Walk the curve of the harbour front past the painted houses and out along the south pier, the one left of the two John Rennie built in the 1820s: the north pier fell in 1839. From the end you look west over the North Channel, and on a clear evening the coast of Northern Ireland is in view, twenty-one miles away. From September to mid-April the sun sets over the sea before half past eight, in time to watch it before supper; in midsummer it goes down after ten. By the inner harbour a sign marks the start of the Southern Upland Way, which runs right across Scotland to Cockburnspath. Keep children close on the pier, and stay off it when big waves come over. Allow about an hour.
About 2 min on foot
Harbour House Hotel
Supper
Supper is a minute or two's walk along the front at the Harbour House Hotel, the long white building on the harbour. Food is served every day from 10am to 9pm, in the bright sea-facing conservatory, the bar and lounge, or out on the terrace on a fine evening, with fresh local seafood on the menu and a separate vegan menu. Dogs are welcome in the bar and lounge. Over Christmas and New Year, check before going.
If it rains
The harbour is open to the weather: in rain keep the stroll to the harbour front and go early to the Harbour House, where the conservatory looks out over the sea.