North Antrim

Ballymena town, in the heart of my North Antrim constituency, was established under the reign of King Charles I on land given by the king to the Adair family in 1626. Ballymena means “place of” and “the middle”. Or, quite literally, the middle town in County Antrim.

The town is locally known as the “City of the Seven Towers”. It is believed that it got this name from Sir Robert Alexander Shafto Adair – the Liberal MP for Cambridge from 1847 to 1857. He was 1st Baron Waveney and High Sheriff of County Antrim. The story goes that when he was walking in the hills around the town, he looked over the expanse and said, “there is a city of seven towers” and pointed to seven towers on view. The towers that would have been visible to him were the old Town Hall built in 1684; the Braidwater Mill built in 1866; St Patrick’s Church of Ireland built in 1853; Ballymena Castle, his home; First Ballymena Presbyterian Church built before 1830; The Old Parish Church built in 1721; and All Saints Catholic Church built between 1860 and 1900.

Today, not all the towers remain. The castle fell into vandalism and was demolished – today a leisure centre stands on its site. The mill has long since been demolished and now hosts a business park. And the town hall was demolished and rebuilt in the last century. But the history and status of the area means Ballymena has always been a place of trade and development and a notable tower of local commerce, something that has continued to this day.

It is a prosperous town, with low unemployment, and several schools and colleges and enterprises, most notable of which is the Wrightbus factory where the lion’s share of London’s iconic red double decker buses are built – and now boasting a hydrogen development site at the heart of the green economy.