The Whistledown Hotel + Bandstand Warrenpoint Down

Pink Flamingos

A late 19th century terrace of houses, long a hotel, has been reinvigorated and given a not so much High Victorian interior as High Celtic. Exuberance is the word. Lunch in the canted bay window is framed on three sides by the best view in County Down, overlooking the incoming storm brewing on Carlingford Lough. Yacht sails shudder, rocks are sprayed and seagulls flap around, while wild garlic mushrooms are served in the first floor restaurant of The Whistledown Hotel come hail or high water. To the rear of the hotel is Warrenpoint Park complete with its freshly restored bandstand, good for sheltering from the rain.

Warrenpoint is blessed with an abundance of Victorian houses, especially along the esplanade. Castle House, close to an inland side of Warrenpoint Park, stands out as being older. It’s a Georgian five bedroomed three storeys over exposed basement corner house marking the junction of St Peter’s Street and Great George’s Street South. The first floor paired Gothic windows are particularly distinctive: with fenestration like this curtains would be a crime. The ground floor margin paned sitting room windows, the middle portion taller than its outer equivalents, is equally interesting, reflecting a triptych of the streetscape. Even a spider’s web of telephone wires can’t diminish the charming appearance of Castle House.