Cave Hill Conservation Campaign
Established in 1989
Awarded The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2019.
Images of the Cave Hill, Bellvue and Hazelwood from years long past. Some to remember and some to discover!
Climbing up to the caves
The view from the top of Cave Hill
Railing, erected to assist climbers
The focus now changes to the Cavehill Road, the main route to the Hill. This area has also changed over the years. Before the Castle was surrounded by trees and houses, it was clearly visible from the road.
Belfast Castle and the Chapel before there were any trees around them.
Getting the hay in at Castle Grounds
This scene in Salisbury Ave was used in the opening of the film 'Closing the Ring'
The old Green Road with the tracks visible
The Waterworks on the Cavehill Road with Cave Hill in the background.
The top pond was 40 ft deep when diving was popular in the Waterworks
Cavehiill Road, the fire station now occupies the site to the left.
Travel on from the Cavehill Road and along to the Antrim Road, you will reach Hazelwood, Bellvue and the Zoological Gardens. These have changed with the passage of time and the photos below give a glimpse of how they were.
The former entrance to the Zoological Gardens
Hazelwood, looking over Foral Hall and the pond.
The old Tea House
Children playing at the pond with the pedal boats in view
Floral Hall by day and by night
The Zoological Gardens, amusements and children's playground
And the Zoo's most famous inhabitant!
Some additional photos of locations in North Belfast, giving glimpses of earlier times.
Bomb damage, Shahdarragh Park. In 1941 there was the German Luftwaffe's first, of four, attacks over Belfast.
The same street on VE Day, 8 May 1945
This house is still standing at the bottom of the road.
The Titanic menu
The Quarry on Cave Hill
Between the basalt ridge of Belfast's Cave Hill and the Triassic sandstone and Marl that supports it, lies a broad layer of chalk and greensand, an important source of lime for agricultural and building sources. This rare photo of the interior of the lime quarries by Belfast photographer, A.R.Hogg, was taken as part of one of his many experiments with early flashlight photography.