Gnomon: The Durrow Leafy Loop Walking Trail
Created | Updated Mar 27, 2018
The Durrow Leafy Loop is a walking trail in County Laois1, Ireland. It is a more-or-less flat walk through forest and agricultural land and is circular, so you start and finish at the same point.
Nearly 4km of the walk is along the banks of the Nore, Ireland's sixth-longest river. Most of the walk is either in the Dunmore Demesne or the Castle Durrow Estate. About 2km is along minor roads. There are three places where the trail crosses a major road.
Distance: 21.2km
Total ascent: 100m
Time: 6 hours including breaks
A Little History
Durrow is some of the best agricultural land in Ireland, and has been a very productive region for at least a thousand years. There are records of a Manor and Estate since the 1200s. For many years these were owned by the Bishops of Ossory and were a source of income for the Church. There are many place names in the area with "Bishop" in them, such as Bishop's Wood, which reflect the ownership by the Bishops.
The Manor was located on Castle Hill where the current Castle Durrow Hotel is. During the Reformation, the land was taken from the bishops and came under the contol of the Duke of Ormond. He rented the house and land out. In about 1700 the house and estate were bought outright from the Duke by a William Flower. He demolished the old manor house and built a new structure on the same spot - the current Castle Durrow. The Flower family acquired the title Viscount of Ashbrook and were known as the Ashbrook family from then on. Castle Durrow stayed in the family until the early 20th century.
When the Irish Free State was set up in 1921, much of the land was confiscated from the Protestant land owners by the Land Commission. Without any form of income, they could no longer support their large houses. Many of them removed the roofs from the houses to make them uninhabitable so that they did not have to pay property tax on them. Some of the former landowners continued to live locally, while others left the country and moved to England. The houses quickly fell into ruin and disappeared, so that many of the old manor houses of Ireland have disappeared almost without trace. This is the case with Dunmore House which we will meet on this walk. Castle Durrow, on the other hand, survived because it was converted into a school.
The Start
The walk starts and ends in the village green of Durrow. There is plenty of parking here for your car. Don't leave any valuables visible in your car.
The walk can be done either clockwise or anticlockwise. I think clockwise is best, because this ends with a long wood walk. If you go anticlockwise, you end with a road walk followed by a very short wood walk.
If you have a smartphone that can measure distance travelled, set it to 0 now. All distances along the route will be shown like this: [3.4km]. It is handy to use a distance tracker app such as MapMyWalk or ViewRanger to keep track of how far you've gone.
[0.0km] Start by walking into the main gate of Castle Durrow. You can't miss it - it has castellated pillars on either side, and a castellated gate lodge. After about 100m, turn right onto a footpath. This soon reaches the River Erkina and follows its bank. You should be able to see Castle Durrow on your left.
Castle Durrow
Castle Durrow was built in 1712-1715 by Colonel William Flower. Despite the name 'Castle', it was never a defensive structure but was built as a Country Mansion. The descendants of the Colonel, the Ashbrook family, lived there until 1922 when they sold out and went to England. Most of the oak forest on the estate was felled for the timber, and the Land Commission divided up the estate, much of it being given over to the new Department of Forestry. In 1929, the Catholic Church bought the Castle and established a school in it, which operated until 1987. During this period, very little maintenance was done on the house and it gradually fell apart. In the 1990s, the Stokes family bought the building and spent a lot of time and money restoring it. It is now operated by them as a hotel.
On your right, across the river, you may be able to see an obelisk. This is known as the White Lady Obelisk. It was built around 1810 in memory of a daughter of the Ashbrook family who died. One story says she died falling off her horse at that spot while out hunting. Another says she was shot by her father. In both versions, her ghost is often seen as a 'White Lady' haunting the spot where she died.
From the Erkina to Dunmore Demesne
The Erkina is called 'Oircín' in Irish. This means 'wild boar piglet' in Irish, but it seems unlikely that the river is named after this animal so it is probably a corruption of some other name.
At [1.2km], cross the footbridge over the Erkina and go straight into the wood on the other side. At [1.3km] at the T-junction, turn left. At [1.7km] the track bends right and leaves the forest. At [1.9km] the track meets a road. This is the one stretch of road-walking in the loop. It is a little over 2 kilometres but is on minor roads.
Go straight on, staying on the right side of the road to face on-coming traffic. At [2.9km] at the T-junction turn left and after another 300m turn right. At some point in the next straight stretch of road, the path turns left into the forest and then continues along roughly parallel to the road. You are now in Dunmore Demesne.
Dunmore Demesne
This is another old estate that fell into disuse. The big house was abandoned and the grounds are now all owned by Forestry. At [4.1km], turn left. The forest track heads away from the road into the forest and bends to the left.
Keep left at the next junction.
At [5.1km] the track bends sharply to the right and soon crosses another river. This has the unlikely name of the River Gully. Keep straight on, ignoring side tracks. The track bends around to the right and at [6.3km] reaches a T-junction. Turn left here.
At [6.8km] you'll see the ruins of the old estate house, Dunmore House. It was built by a man named Drysdale. Next it was occupied by Dr Maurice, Protestant Bishop of Ossory until his death in 1756 after which it was taken over by a relative, Captain Robert Staples. It stayed in his family until the early 1920s. At [7.2km] the track bends sharply right back on its tracks and descends to the banks of the River Nore.
The River Nore
The Nore is the 6th-longest river in Ireland. It and the Rivers Barrow and Suir (the 2nd- and 3rd- longest) are known as the 'Three Sisters', as they all join together2 just before meeting the Sea at Waterford. The next few kilometres of the Leafy Loop are along the banks of the Nore.
At [8.3km] cross the footbridge back across the River Gully. Continue on the bank of the Nore. The path passes within 200m of an earlier section of the route here. At [8.6km] the path comes out onto a busy road, the N77. Cross carefully and continue along the bank of the river.
At [9.9km] there's another footbridge, across the Erkina River. The Nore leaves the forest here and continues through agricultural land. At [10.8km] turn right, away from the river as it meets another forest, Knockatrim Wood. At [11.0km] turn sharp left into this forest, and follow the forest track until it comes out onto the N77 road again [11.9km].
Turn right and go 100m or so down the road, then cross carefully. The route continues into the forest on the other side of the road at a small picnic area.
At [12.5km] keep right. The track then leaves the forest and comes to a road at [12.9]. Turn left. The road soon re-enters the forest at [13.3km]. Take the track to the right, which follows the right side of this narrow band of forest.
At [15.0km], turn right onto a rough track which soon enters Capponellan Wood [15.4km].
Capponellan Wood and Bishop's Wood
"Keep your eyes open for coppiced goat willows and hazel that are thought to be of considerable age, keeping in mind that much of this site was wooded from the 17th through to the 19th centuries."
At [17.3km] the path cross another fairly busy road, the R639. Until recently this was the N8, the main road from Dublin to Cork and the busiest road in the country, but it was bypassed when the M8 motorway opened in about 2009. You now enter Bishop's Wood.
There's a story that in the 1700s, a Catholic bishop was saying mass in the wood (at a time when Catholics were persecuted and the saying of mass was illegal). The group was discovered by the authorities. The bishop was tied to a tree and left to die. There's now a cross marking the spot. The story is suspicious because the bishop is not named, and it's not clear why the others attending the mass didn't untie him.
The cross is only a few hundred metres off the route of the Leafy Loop: at [17.7km] you can take a detour to the left to see it - go 200m down this side path, then turn slightly to the right for about 70m. Retrace your route after seeing the cross.
At [18.2km] turn left and follow the track until you meet the Erkina River at [19.0km]. Turn right and follow the bank of the river. At [20km] you rejoin your original route at the footbridge. Continue along the bank, retracing the start of the route in reverse, to arrive back at Durrow Village Green at [21.2km].
