Overview
The Comber Greenway is a seven-mile, traffic-free path from east Belfast to the County Down town of Comber, laid along the old Belfast and County Down Railway. It’s flat the whole way, recently widened to four metres of smooth asphalt, and almost entirely off-road – which is why it’s one of the busiest greenways in Northern Ireland, used as much by commuters as by day-trippers. Part of Sustrans’ National Cycle Network (Route 99), it’s open all hours, year-round, and free.
Seven miles is a fair walk one way – two and a half to three hours – so if you want the whole thing, bring a bike; you’ll ride it comfortably in under an hour. Walkers tend to do a section and catch the Glider back from the Holywood Arches end.
Following the line
The signed route starts in the city at the Big Fish, the ceramic-tiled salmon sculpture beside the Lagan at Queen Elizabeth Bridge, and threads through quiet east Belfast streets to C.S. Lewis Square – a civic plaza with bronze statues of Aslan, the White Witch and other figures from The Chronicles of Narnia, named for the Belfast-born author who grew up nearby. The fully traffic-free greenway proper begins just after, behind the Glider halt at the Ravenscroft Avenue car park, and from there follows the railway trackbed out of the city.
The first stretch through Dundonald is honestly the dullest – it runs behind a retail park and cinema with little to look at – but past the Comber Road the path opens into countryside, crossing the Enler River on reinstated railway bridges and skirting a designated wetland where you’ll see waterfowl. The long views are the reward: the Stormont Estate through the trees, and Scrabo Tower on its hill ahead as you near Comber. It ends on the Belfast Road at the edge of town, by the Billy Neill soccer centre.
A railway reborn
The corridor carried the Belfast and County Down Railway from the 1850s until the line closed in 1950. After the track was lifted the government held on to the land, expecting to run a motorway along it; the road was never built, informal walkways grew up along the route, and a sewer-upgrade scheme in the 2000s finally paid for a proper surfaced path, road crossings and drainage. The greenway was completed in November 2008. You still pass the sites of the old stations – Bloomfield, Neill’s Hill, Knock and Dundonald – with the remains of Neill’s Hill platform surviving near Sandown Road.
Knowing before you go
- It’s free and never closes, but there’s no lighting, so treat it as a daytime route in winter.
- There are no cafés or toilets directly on the path – stock up at the Holywood Arches end, or wait for Comber.
- Bring water and a waterproof; the trail is open and exposed for much of its length.
- The busier road crossings (Knock Road, Comber Road) are controlled by toucan signals. It’s a shared, well-used path, so keep left and mind the commuter cyclists.
- Basic cycle repair stands (pump and tools) are at C.S. Lewis Square and the Billy Neill fields near Comber, and some east Belfast cafés give cyclists a discount under the Pedal Perks scheme.
Getting there and parking
There’s no parking on the greenway itself. At the Belfast end, the Titanic Quarter train station and the Holywood Arches Glider halt put you on the route; at the Comber end there’s parking near the Billy Neill centre and around the town. With public transport at the Belfast end, a one-way walk or ride is easy to plan.
Comber and nearby
Comber is a tidy market town known for its early potatoes – the Comber Earlies carry protected status – and for its coffee and food shops; it’s a good place to finish with a flat white and something from a bakery on the square. Just outside the town, the WWT Castle Espie Wetland Centre on the shore of Strangford Lough holds Ireland’s largest collection of ducks, geese and swans, and more confident cyclists carry on by road to ride the lough shore. If the long-proposed extensions are ever built, the greenway will run on through Ballygowan and Saintfield towards the Mournes – for now, Comber is the end of the line.