placenamesScrabo
Screabach
Scrabo’s tower and sandstone quarries connect a familiar skyline landmark with the area’s building history.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Screabach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Scrabo · English · main form
Place & story
A tower in memory
Scrabo Tower was built in 1857 as a memorial to the third Marquess of Londonderry, who died in 1854. Designed by Lanyon and Lynn in Scottish Baronial style, it rises almost 125 feet above the hilltop. The council’s heritage account records a cost exceeding £3,000, even after the design was reduced by one storey. [2]
Stone sent across the water
Scrabo Hill was also a source of building sandstone. The same heritage account cites William Montgomery’s 1683 description of stone being carried to Dublin and elsewhere in quantity. Scrabo stone became a familiar material in buildings across the Ards. Disused quarries survive within the country park around the hill. [2] [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Castlereagh Lower
- Civil parish
- Newtownards
- Within
- Scrabo
- Coordinates
- 54.58380, -5.72597 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413295 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Scrabo. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Ulster-Scots and Scrabo Tower · Ards and North Down Borough Council
- Scrabo Tower · Department for Communities, Northern Ireland
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.