Our History

This beautiful stately home was once home to the Hon Robert Edward Ward – brother of the third Viscount of Bangor and High Sheriff of Down – and its elegant architecture is rendered in the Elizabethan-Jacobean Revival style.

Inside, the museum charts the borough’s rich history in a series of rooms, each dedicated to a particular era – from the Bronze Age right through to more modern times. Just some of the artefacts on display include the Bronze Age Ballycroghan Swords and the Bangor Bell from the Bangor Abbey settlement, along with the Raven Maps – Ireland’s only complete folio of Plantation era maps.