The Toome Canal was dug between 1753 and 1764, to a plan by the engineer Richard Owen Cambridge, to move goods off Lough Neagh toward Belfast. The barges are long gone. What’s left is a flat two-kilometre (1.2 mile) towpath that runs from the car park on Railway Road out to the open shore of Lough Neagh, and it’s an easy half-hour rather than a day out. If you’re passing, or you’re chasing Game of Thrones locations, it’s worth the stop; on its own it isn’t a reason to detour far.
Walking the route
From the car park the path heads south along the canal, dead flat and firm underfoot the whole way. To your right you pass the iron skeleton of the old railway bridge over the Bann and the Lower Bann sluice gates, still in place and still holding back the lough. A few hundred metres on, the canal opens out and Lough Neagh spreads in front of you, the largest lake in the British Isles and, on a still morning, a sheet of pale water to the horizon. You can turn back the way you came or take the short loop to the right. Either way it’s about 30 to 40 minutes at a stroll.
It’s genuinely level walking, off-road but even, and fine for buggies and most walkers. Dogs are welcome on a lead, particularly by the reed beds where birds nest in spring.
The railway bridge and Game of Thrones
The quiet belies a busy past. The canal was built to carry goods between Lough Neagh and Belfast, and the towpath still runs past the industrial bones of that trade, the rusting railway bridge and the sluice gates chief among them.
More recently the canal turned up on screen. This stretch stood in for the boat journey through the ruins of Valyria in Game of Thrones, the scene where Jorah Mormont rows a captive Tyrion Lannister down a still, overgrown channel. The narrow water, the leaning banks and the weathered bridge do the work on their own; you don’t need to know the show to see why the location scouts picked it.
Wildlife
The canal and loughshore are good for birds: herons stalking the margins, swans on the open water, kingfishers if you’re lucky, and waders through the winter. It’s also a well-known coarse fishery, with pike, perch, roach, bream and eels all running here.
Practical information
- Getting there: the trailhead car park is at 10 Railway Road, Toome (BT41 3TD), signposted in the village and easily reached from Randalstown and Magherafelt.
- Parking: on site and usually free, though charges can apply at peak times or during events. It fills on sunny days, so come before midday.
- Facilities: none on the trail itself. Public toilets, shops and cafés are a ten-minute walk away in Toome village; Gran’s Café and the O’Neill Arms are the handiest for a coffee or a pint after.
- Underfoot: flat, off-road paths along the canal bank, easy going for most.
- Safety: in warm spells Lough Neagh can throw up blue-green algae blooms, so keep dogs and children out of any scummy water and stick to the path.
For route maps, the Countryside Recreation Officer at Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council can help on 028 9446 3113. To make a fuller morning of it, call in to the Lough Neagh Fisheries Visitors Centre in Toomebridge, where the eel fishery that has worked these waters for centuries is still going.