Helen's Tower
Coordinates: 54°37′21″N 5°41′40″W / 54.62255°N 5.694574°W
Helen's Tower is a 19th-century folly on the Clandeboye Estate in Bangor, Northern Ireland. The tower was commissioned by Lord Dufferin of Clandeboye, designed by Scottish architect William Burn and completed in October 1861. The tower was named in honour of Dufferin's mother, Helen Selina Blackwood, the Lady Dufferin. The tower inspired a number of poems, which were inscribed within the building. During the First World War, soldiers of the 36th (Ulster) Division trained at Clandeboye before being sent to the front line, and the landmark tower was chosen as the model for the Ulster Tower, a monument erected at Thiepval in 1921. Helen's Tower was restored in the 1980s and is now a holiday let managed by the Landmark Trust. It is a grade A listed building, recognised as "one of the two finest memorial towers in the country".
Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (1826–1902) inherited the title of Baron Dufferin and Claneboye, along with the Clandeboye Estate, in 1841 while still a schoolboy. On reaching the age of majority in 1847, he began a major improvement of the estate, which lies on the east coast of County Down, overlooking Belfast Lough and the town of Bangor. Like the rest of Ireland, the area was affected by the Great Famine of the 1840s, resulting in widespread poverty and destitution, and Lord Dufferin's works were done in part with the objective of providing employment to local people.
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