Fair Head

Fair Head is the great headland east of Ballycastle on the Causeway Coast, where columnar-jointed dolerite cliffs rise around 200 metres above the sea, formed about 60 million years ago when molten rock was forced between older layers and cooled into giant organ-pipe columns. The clifftop is wild farmland grazed by sheep and cattle, with small loughs scattered across it; in Lough na Cranagh an Iron Age crannog, an artificial island dwelling, still sits in the middle of the water. The Grey Man's Path, a steep gully squeezed between the columns, drops towards the shore, and the cliffs are counted among the best traditional climbing and bouldering crags in the British Isles, with hundreds of routes. Most of the land is private farmland, and access depends on the goodwill of the farmers, while the National Trust leases the land to the east of the headland. Reviewers are awed by the scale of the drops, the wind and the views to Rathlin Island and the Scottish coast on a clear day. Tips from visitors: there is a small charge to park in the farmyard car park, and signage is patchy, so photograph the map before setting off.