Watertop Farm
County Antrim
Small working-farm campsite in the hills above Ballycastle, open to tents and tourers
About Watertop Farm
Watertop is a family-run farm on the road between Ballycastle and Cushendall, in the upland country where the Causeway Coast begins to fold into the Glens of Antrim. The camping is deliberately modest in scale: a grass field for tents and trailer tents, plus hard standing serviced pitches with electric hook-up for touring caravans, campervans and motorhomes. The setting is open moorland and grazing land with Knocklayd rising behind, which means big views and, on a windy day, a strong case for pitching in the lee of the hedge.
The farm has been worked by the same family since the early 1900s and the activity side of it is a large part of the appeal for anyone camping with children. There are farm animals to meet, pony trekking, boating on the small lake, mini golf, play areas, hill walking trails on the farm's own land and a cottage museum of old agricultural life. Pitches come with picnic tables and fire pits are permitted, which makes for good evenings once the sun drops behind the hill. Dogs are welcome on leads.
Ballycastle is a short drive down the hill, giving you the Rathlin Island ferry, a good crescent beach, the town's Friday market and the excellent Ursa Minor Bakehouse. Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge and Ballintoy Harbour are around fifteen minutes west along the coast road, and the Giant's Causeway roughly half an hour. For campers who want the Causeway Coast by day but somewhere genuinely rural to come back to at night, this is one of the better compromises on the north Antrim side.