Photo: Ulsterbeef / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
About this place
Mount Stewart sits on the shores of Strangford Lough in County Down, Northern Ireland, and is the ancestral seat of the Londonderry family.
The house is principally a nineteenth-century building, with the main block constructed for the 3rd Marquess in the mid-1840s, though the family's connection to the estate stretches back to the eighteenth century.
Among its most notable former residents was Lord Castlereagh, who played a central role in negotiating the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
The National Trust first took on the gardens in 1955, and the house itself came to the Trust in 1977 when Lady Mairi Bury donated it.
The gardens are regarded as among the finest in the Trust's care anywhere in the United Kingdom.
They benefit from an unusually mild microclimate, which allows plants to thrive here that would struggle elsewhere in Ireland.
Plan your visit
Open daily year-round; gardens open all year with seasonal hours for the house; check the National Trust website for current details.