0:00:03 > 0:00:07I'm above Strangford Lough in County Down, Northern Ireland.
0:00:07 > 0:00:12It's a peaceful landscape, with fertile hills rolling down to a great sea lough.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16But 400 years ago, this Catholic land was suddenly colonised.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26Back in the 1600s, this was a land which attracted
0:00:26 > 0:00:31adventurers who came from Scotland and England, to enjoy a better life.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35To the native Irish these Protestant colonists were invaders
0:00:35 > 0:00:38intent on stealing their land.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40They arrived in droves.
0:00:40 > 0:00:4350,000 in Ulster by the 1620s
0:00:43 > 0:00:48and the Troubles of today have their roots in this plantation period.
0:00:50 > 0:00:57It took an enterprising map maker to come and map the estate here and Thomas Raven was certainly that.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01Raven's maps are beautiful and astonishingly detailed,
0:01:01 > 0:01:04accurate pictures they give of this troubled land.
0:01:08 > 0:01:13For the colonists, Ireland was a country up for grabs that made
0:01:13 > 0:01:18map making difficult and not just because the Irish were hostile.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22There is a secret story behind these maps.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26The story about rival landowners more concerned with their
0:01:26 > 0:01:29Protestant neighbours than with the Catholics they dispossessed.
0:01:59 > 0:02:06Thomas Raven's Clandeboye maps were designed to help James Hamilton manage his new estate in Ulster.
0:02:06 > 0:02:13A set of 75 sheets, Clandeboye covered 64,000 acres.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16Never before had the layout and boundaries,
0:02:16 > 0:02:22the land farmed by tenants, even the possibilities for development
0:02:22 > 0:02:24be mapped in such precise details.
0:02:24 > 0:02:29This was a picture of the new settled world.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34At the heart of the new estate was this building, Killyleagh Castle,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37it's instantly recognisable from Raven's drawing.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40What a spectacular place.
0:02:40 > 0:02:46This was the mansion that Hamilton took over from the great Catholic chieftain, Conn O'Neill.
0:02:46 > 0:02:52In 1605 Hamilton was the beneficiary of James I's policy of planting
0:02:52 > 0:02:57new Protestant landowners on Irish Catholic lands.
0:02:57 > 0:03:03James Hamilton was the first Viscount of Clandeboye and he was a great landowner himself.
0:03:03 > 0:03:10Hamilton came originally from Ayrshire in Scotland and he was one of James the I's spies.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13He looks the part, doesn't he? The King's reward for this skulduggery,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16a huge slice of the north of Ireland.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25The Ulster Plantation, as these new estates were called,
0:03:25 > 0:03:30had started, not very successfully, in Elizabeth I's reign.
0:03:30 > 0:03:35But it was in the early 1600s that it really took off.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44Thomas Raven was born around 1574.
0:03:44 > 0:03:49He was probably English but he made his career in Ulster.
0:03:51 > 0:03:57These maps were begun in 1625, the year James I died.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00Were the two events perhaps connected?
0:04:02 > 0:04:06For 20 years Hamilton had been arguing with his Protestant neighbour Hugh Montgomery
0:04:06 > 0:04:09about their shared boundaries.
0:04:09 > 0:04:15In 1623, an enquiry ordered by King James I had failed to resolve the dispute,
0:04:15 > 0:04:18so two years later when James died,
0:04:18 > 0:04:23Hamilton would have been extremely worried that the incoming King Charles I would also intervene.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Possibly even take Montgomery's side.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29Hamilton needed Raven's maps to stake his claim.
0:04:31 > 0:04:36Hamilton and Montgomery were typical of the new ambitious colonists
0:04:36 > 0:04:40struggling to establish large estates in Ireland.
0:04:40 > 0:04:47But Hamilton had an advantage. In Raven he had found one of the country's experienced surveyors.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52This might look a terrible mess, but in actual fact, all these maps make
0:04:52 > 0:04:55complete geographical sense, they all fit together.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Despite the fact that some of them, like this one here, are upside down with the south at the top.
0:05:00 > 0:05:05Raven has framed each map to describe a particular parcel of land.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09He never meant all these maps to be fitted together.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12So to make sense of it myself I've transferred the location
0:05:12 > 0:05:17of all Raven's maps onto modern maps, so I can see what's what.
0:05:17 > 0:05:22So we've got the south side of Hamilton's estate here running up the west side of Strangford Lough.
0:05:22 > 0:05:28The rest of Hamilton's estate ran up here through Dundonald, Comber just here,
0:05:28 > 0:05:32and along the south side of Belfast Lough into Belfast.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36Fascinating thing is the way that Hamilton's land
0:05:36 > 0:05:42is surrounded on all sides by those of other landowners, in particular, Montgomery. Look at this.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46This is Montgomery's land here and here, with Hamilton's land here.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50And the big question is, did Raven get those borders right?
0:05:53 > 0:05:57Time to start my journey.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12What I'm hoping to do is to trace Hamilton's estate
0:06:12 > 0:06:15from its southernmost tip all the way north to Belfast.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18I will be using Raven's 400-year-old maps.
0:06:18 > 0:06:24So finding old boundaries like 17th-century woods and rivers will be no walk in the park.
0:06:24 > 0:06:29Raven shows much of Hamilton's estate bordering Strangford Lough
0:06:29 > 0:06:33which Raven gives the old Irish name of Lough Cone.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36At the southern end is Gibbs Island.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41What really strikes me, walking around
0:06:41 > 0:06:45the fields and woods of Northern Ireland is how easy it is for me.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49400 years ago none of this land was drained.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54It would have been thick woods, bogs everywhere. No proper roads.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58You would have been on foot. Probably used a horse now and again.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01It would have been very hard work. You must have been fit.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07Raven would have mapped this island shortly after the death of James I.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10During his reign, James's Plantation policy had provided
0:07:10 > 0:07:17Raven with a lot of work, and Raven hoped that the new King Charles I would make him King's own measurer.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20But Charles turned him down and that's the reason why Raven
0:07:20 > 0:07:24took on a lot of private work and the Clandeboye Estate.
0:07:25 > 0:07:30From here Raven only had 100 square miles to go.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32Piece of cake really.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43If you look at Raven's map of Lough Cone
0:07:43 > 0:07:47you can't help noticing the care he put into the channels and islands
0:07:47 > 0:07:53and most intriguingly Ringhaddy. Why did Raven think it was so significant?
0:07:56 > 0:08:03The Protestant settlers like Hamilton and Montgomery didn't feel too secure in their adopted homeland
0:08:03 > 0:08:08so they built themselves new castles and towers and enlarged old ones.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10All to keep themselves safe.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18For Raven the most impressive was at Ringhaddy.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22The present owner of Ringhaddy is Sir Dennis Faulkner.
0:08:22 > 0:08:28Dennis, we are just off your house and right beside it is the castle showing Raven's map.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31- When was the castle built? - Around 1450,
0:08:31 > 0:08:33as a single-storey building.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37It was raised up to the height it now is, which is four storeys, I suppose.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Three in about 1602.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44So it would have been quite impressive in those days.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47Yes, it was a tower house, I think is how it was referred to.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52It did have something like 30 soldiers based there,
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Scottish and English soldiers up to 1780.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59How important was Ringhaddy in the 1600s?
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Pretty important because the west side only has Strangford
0:09:03 > 0:09:08at the entrance as a town, a very old town, with Customs House and so on then Killyleagh
0:09:08 > 0:09:10about four or five miles north of that.
0:09:10 > 0:09:14So this is one of the three most important places on Strangford Lough?
0:09:14 > 0:09:18- Well, certainly on the west side. - So any tenant renting this island
0:09:18 > 0:09:23from Hamilton would have known that not only had he a castle but also a good mooring as well.
0:09:23 > 0:09:28Safe anchorage and a place where you could load and discharge ships in any weather.
0:09:40 > 0:09:44Ringhaddy was a crucial trading post.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Hamilton would have expected Raven to map it with care.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53So was the mapping of Strangford Lough an exception
0:09:53 > 0:09:57or did Raven take equal care with the whole estate?
0:10:04 > 0:10:09On a page like this you would see the essence of what Raven was trying to achieve for Hamilton.
0:10:09 > 0:10:10It's just another page in a book
0:10:10 > 0:10:13but it's a particularly beautiful and detailed one.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16There are footbridges marked on it
0:10:16 > 0:10:18and even individual gateposts.
0:10:18 > 0:10:24Gateways through fields, two circles connected by a thin line.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28It's a map which describes the economical potential of this part of the estate.
0:10:28 > 0:10:33For example, there is a smith's forge here, there is the harbour down here, there is a small herd
0:10:33 > 0:10:39of very beautiful deer marked here surrounded by the perimeter of the park.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42And of course deer, in those days, had huge economic value
0:10:42 > 0:10:45but so did rabbits and that's because a rabbit warren
0:10:45 > 0:10:50had economic value, both as a source of fur and of food.
0:10:50 > 0:10:56Here they are, gathered by the seashore, six of them,
0:10:56 > 0:11:01by a label saying Coneyburrow, and the size just over five acres,
0:11:01 > 0:11:04The rabbit warren beside the bay.
0:11:04 > 0:11:09Now this map tells every tenant where their plot of land is,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12for example there is a road here, so a tenant called Robert Hogg
0:11:12 > 0:11:17will know that his plot of land lies on the left hand side of the road.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21His neighbour is John Padden, below there we've got...
0:11:21 > 0:11:26someone called Duncan Read, John Ross, Alexander Stuart, a lot of Scottish names.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30They can come to this map and find out exactly where their parcel of land is.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34For Hamilton, he could look at this map, find out where his tenants were
0:11:34 > 0:11:38and how much they should be paying for the land they are renting.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40This is a set of money-making maps.
0:11:40 > 0:11:46What strikes you looking through these maps is how few signs of Catholic habitation there are.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50Perhaps not surprising, when you consider that in the 1600s
0:11:50 > 0:11:57land owned by Catholics in Ireland declined from over 80% to just 14%.
0:11:57 > 0:12:03But the situation here on Hamilton's estate was slightly different.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08There are very few Irish settlements on these maps, but not because they had all been driven away,
0:12:08 > 0:12:12it's because this was a very under-populated part of Ireland in the first place.
0:12:12 > 0:12:17On this particular map there are two groups of three Irish houses
0:12:17 > 0:12:24that appear to have a thatched roof on them and they look very remote on the shores of Lough Clay.
0:12:24 > 0:12:29It's a very beautiful map and one that's entirely about boundaries.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31Indeed, defining boundaries was absolutely key.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34It was the absence of mapped boundaries that had led to
0:12:34 > 0:12:38the costly dispute between Hamilton and his neighbour Montgomery.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43Tomorrow, I am going to find out how Raven tackled Hamilton's land
0:12:43 > 0:12:48to the west of the Lough, in particular, this area, Balle McCossan,
0:12:48 > 0:12:54where Hamilton's land is hemmed in on three sides by Montgomery's.
0:12:54 > 0:13:00With so much at stake, how could Raven fix the boundaries so that they were beyond dispute?
0:13:11 > 0:13:13Well, I have married up the boundary on Raven's map with
0:13:13 > 0:13:17a modern Ordnance Survey map and the two fit together amazingly well.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22I am standing at Lusky Bridge, here on the modern Ordnance Survey map,
0:13:22 > 0:13:27and I can see very clearly how this tip of the arrowhead river shape
0:13:27 > 0:13:30on Raven's map is this arrowhead shape on the modern Ordnance Survey.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34So if I follow the river in this direction south-west,
0:13:34 > 0:13:38and just here it turns up and halfway up this stretch here
0:13:38 > 0:13:41is another bridge, nowadays called Florida Bridge.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43So if I can follow Raven's river from Lusky Bridge
0:13:43 > 0:13:47down here to Florida Bridge, I will be right on the boundary
0:13:47 > 0:13:50between Montgomery's land and Hamilton's land.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Big question - did Raven actually map it accurately?
0:13:53 > 0:13:56The only one way to find out is to follow it.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00Well, the banks are pretty overgrown so it's going to be on with the waders.
0:14:04 > 0:14:11By 1625, these two powerful men had reached a pitch of mutual hatred.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14Montgomery was undoubtedly the grander figure.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16He had been a landowner before coming to Ireland.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20But Hamilton had the King's ear.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24Montgomery felt Hamilton had acquired his estate fraudulently
0:14:24 > 0:14:29by telling the King that Montgomery's holding was just too much for one man.
0:14:29 > 0:14:34To make it worse for Montgomery, Hamilton had managed to get the better land.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39Florida Bridge, right where it should be.
0:14:42 > 0:14:47Now, the line of the River Blackwater carries on in a north-westerly direction
0:14:47 > 0:14:50but that's not what Raven's boundary does.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54That turns another corner and heads south-west,
0:14:54 > 0:14:59yet Raven suggests it's still following a stretch of water.
0:14:59 > 0:15:03I've got to get up to that corner now to see what the river does there.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Well, I've reached the bend in the boundary between the two estates.
0:15:18 > 0:15:23The boundary comes up the Blackwater here then turns south up this tiny stream.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28Everything on that side belonged to Montgomery, everything on that side belonged to Hamilton.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31What amazes me is that such insignificant
0:15:31 > 0:15:36geographical features can be used to mark such an important boundary.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Off north now to the front line.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52Cumber, a town founded by Montgomery,
0:15:52 > 0:15:57and it was there that an interesting twist in the story occurred.
0:15:58 > 0:16:02Raven's maps seemed to show a new development to Cumber
0:16:02 > 0:16:07on the eastern side of the river and that was Hamilton's land.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Well, I'm pretty sure I'm in the right place.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15Old Cumber's back that way and new Cumber is just through these trees.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22Except that it's gone, vanished.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27Something very odd here.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29Where are all the houses?
0:16:31 > 0:16:38Raven marks 20 houses clustered around two streets meeting in a T-junction just here.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41But there's not a wall to be seen, not even a bump in the ground.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43There's nothing but level fields.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49If the address you're after disappears the first people to contact are the locals.
0:16:49 > 0:16:56So I fixed a meeting with Cumber historian Glen Ball to see if he knows where the village has gone.
0:16:56 > 0:17:01I was pretty shocked when I came into this field and found absolutely no houses at all.
0:17:01 > 0:17:06I was too when I first started to study the area and the fact I couldn't find anything,
0:17:06 > 0:17:11no tangible evidence at all, led me to believe that there may not even have been a village here.
0:17:11 > 0:17:15And another thing is that a lot of the maps that I have been looking through over,
0:17:15 > 0:17:22you know, over that space of time since 1625, they don't show any sign of a village settlement at all.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26- So Raven was the only person to map this town?- It seems so, yes.
0:17:26 > 0:17:32James Hamilton may have asked him to do this, because Hamilton wanted a bit more fame for himself
0:17:32 > 0:17:38and he wanted to build a village which was opposed to the old town of Cumber which is just over the river.
0:17:38 > 0:17:43That farmhouse is called New Cumber House. Could that be a remnant of the village?
0:17:43 > 0:17:49Well, I think it's almost certainly named after the village, the proposed village of New Cumber.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53It may have been named that simply because of the history of the old Raven map.
0:17:53 > 0:17:59Is it possible that New Cumber was actually built but then disappeared shortly afterwards?
0:17:59 > 0:18:04I suppose anything could be possible but to me it would be doubtful
0:18:04 > 0:18:07that such a large establishment would just disappear
0:18:07 > 0:18:09completely off the face of the Earth.
0:18:09 > 0:18:14Has anyone conducted a survey to find out whether a building is just below the surface of the field?
0:18:14 > 0:18:19No, certainly not that I know of and it would be a wonderful idea if somebody did.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22It would sort the thing out once and for all.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27For a relatively small sum it's possible to do
0:18:27 > 0:18:32what's called a geophysical survey of subterranean evidence.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35That's what archaeologists do all the time.
0:18:36 > 0:18:44If there are any structures down there, Claire Stevens and Fiona Robertson will find them.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52James Hamilton could not, of course, have run the Clandeboye Estate by himself.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55Like other colonists he brought over Protestant friends
0:18:55 > 0:19:00and family from the mainland and rented them plots of land to farm.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03And they needed new villages to live in.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07So could New Cumber have been Hamilton's way
0:19:07 > 0:19:13of saying to Montgomery, "I'm here to stay and this is my new village right on your doorstep"?
0:19:16 > 0:19:20Claire and Fiona have a full day's work ahead of them
0:19:20 > 0:19:25so while they are busy I'm going to check out a bit more of Raven's map.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31As well as sorting out Hamilton's boundaries with Montgomery's estate
0:19:31 > 0:19:36Raven had to map the individual parcels of land belonging to Hamilton's tenants.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39So what are the features Raven used?
0:19:41 > 0:19:44Up here in Ballywallon
0:19:44 > 0:19:49is the boundary between Ballywallon just here
0:19:49 > 0:19:52and the neighbouring parcel of land, Ballyallegan, here.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56And the boundary seems to be fixed on a bend in the river just here.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01What looks like a green volcano here and a long thin lough just here.
0:20:01 > 0:20:08The only trouble is none of those three features seem to be marked on the modern Ordnance Survey map.
0:20:09 > 0:20:15With the village gone missing and no sign on the map of the lough or the green thing
0:20:15 > 0:20:19I'm beginning to wonder how much of the map may have disappeared.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22What I am hoping is that the bend in the river
0:20:22 > 0:20:25will give me a bearing on the green volcano
0:20:25 > 0:20:28and perhaps from there I can locate the lough.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32Well, the bend in the river's just over there.
0:20:32 > 0:20:38Now according to Raven this mysterious green volcano is due south of here.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42Up there. This is an old map suddenly come alive.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58What this might be up on the hilltop ahead
0:20:58 > 0:21:00is a rath -
0:21:00 > 0:21:03that's an Irish homestead.
0:21:03 > 0:21:10And if it is a rath, there ought to be a ditch in the steep bank.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14Oh, oh!
0:21:17 > 0:21:22Well, I've reached to top of the hill. What is this great overgrown lump?
0:21:22 > 0:21:27Could it be a rath? I'm going to creep inside and have a look.
0:21:27 > 0:21:32Well, there very steep bank here dropping down.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36A very steep bank!
0:21:36 > 0:21:38Wow. It's a good...
0:21:38 > 0:21:4010 or 12 feet high
0:21:40 > 0:21:42and it's made of rocks.
0:21:42 > 0:21:47Look, this is man made, it's definitely a rath.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53This is what Raven marked on his map, the green volcano revealed.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59Extraordinary.
0:21:59 > 0:22:05Here's Raven using a 2,000-year-old man-made landmark to fix his boundary.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10And he probably didn't know it was one of the earliest settlements in Ireland.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12Now, what about that lough?
0:22:12 > 0:22:17Going from the river and the rath, it's so close that I should be able to see it
0:22:17 > 0:22:19but I can't.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22This is the sort of thing that requires local help.
0:22:24 > 0:22:30Will Armstrong's family have been farming this land for three generations.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34If anyone knows if there is a lough hereabouts, he should.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37Will, have you got a lake on your land or anything like it?
0:22:37 > 0:22:41No, there's no lakes or anything, but we have a bog, so we have.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43But it's got water. How long has that water been there?
0:22:43 > 0:22:47That water there only appeared when we were trying to get across to
0:22:47 > 0:22:51those fields over there with a path for the cows and we put landfill in
0:22:51 > 0:22:55and we thought we were just going to just have vegetation and maybe a couple of feet of water.
0:22:55 > 0:23:03We pushed it in and pushed it in and worked away steady for about a week and then we went away one lunchtime
0:23:03 > 0:23:07and when we came back out after lunchtime, gone, nothing.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09Just fell through the vegetation?
0:23:09 > 0:23:12Hm-mm, it fell through the surface and totally disappeared out of sight.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14How much soil was that?
0:23:14 > 0:23:17We would reckon maybe 1,000, 1,500 ton of soil.
0:23:17 > 0:23:201,500 tons of soil disappeared in one lunch break?!
0:23:20 > 0:23:22One lunch break, just out of sight.
0:23:22 > 0:23:23How big is the bog?
0:23:23 > 0:23:29It goes to past thon tree, the tallest oak tree you see on the far side,
0:23:29 > 0:23:34and right back to... You see all those small houses on that side there?
0:23:34 > 0:23:37Well, what's that, that's about 700 yards?
0:23:37 > 0:23:40Roughly something around that direction, it would be, yeah.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47Can we find out how deep it is?
0:23:47 > 0:23:51We could push down through and see.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53- Shall we have a go at it? - No problem.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59OK, if you give me that.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02There's one bit, where is the...?
0:24:02 > 0:24:05Yup, the bit with the twirly end, yup.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10This water absolutely stinks.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Whoa ho! There you go, here's the other one.
0:24:14 > 0:24:16Is it still going down?
0:24:16 > 0:24:18Oh, yes, we're going now. Ooh.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25What, these are all about three feet long, aren't they?
0:24:25 > 0:24:28- Yup, they are indeed.- There's only two more sections to go, Will.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31I've only got one more bit left after this.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33Well, we'll see how it goes.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36What happens if you fall in one of these?
0:24:36 > 0:24:38I don't want to try and find out.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41It's still going.
0:24:41 > 0:24:42How amazing!
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Well, if this one goes down,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48this is the best part of 20 feet, isn't it?
0:24:48 > 0:24:4921 feet down to the handle.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52OK, let's see where it goes.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55I do not believe it.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58- 21 feet.- It's still going. Have you hit the bottom?
0:24:58 > 0:25:00No, still going.
0:25:00 > 0:25:06So if there is 21 feet right here on the edge, that means it really was a big body of water once.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09- Definitely so, yes.- Well, it's the right length and the right width.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12I think you've found Raven's lost lough.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16Well, that's news to me. We never had a lough, we always had a bog.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25I never cease to be amazed by the way landscapes carry their histories.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30400 years might seem a very long time
0:25:30 > 0:25:35but all these features that Raven marked on his map are still here to be found.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42So, I know what happened to the vanishing lough.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45I wonder how they are getting on with that vanished village.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47Have you found anything?
0:25:47 > 0:25:52- We certainly have. We found the missing village.- That's fantastic!
0:25:52 > 0:25:54Yep, let me just orientate you.
0:25:54 > 0:26:00Along here is the modern road and this would be the bridge here.
0:26:00 > 0:26:01This is the stream
0:26:01 > 0:26:05and this square enclosure here which is about 15 metres square
0:26:05 > 0:26:11on the correct alignment that matches the map, that's an individual habitation plot.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14There would have been a house within that. We've no evidence of the house
0:26:14 > 0:26:17and we don't know what the houses were made of.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20If they were made of wood they would leave no signal,
0:26:20 > 0:26:24so it's just someone who is just marking out the plots of land and maybe digging a ditch
0:26:24 > 0:26:28and then material has been put into that ditch which is what is producing the response.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33What is interesting, is this L-shaped thing which you can see here,
0:26:33 > 0:26:38possibly corresponds to this, two bowed plots here
0:26:38 > 0:26:42and that means that this is the side street.
0:26:42 > 0:26:47It's just a huge relief to know that Raven's map is vindicated.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52This wasn't an invented or a planned town at all. It actually existed.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54- Yeah.- That's very exciting.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57- And you're the first person to see it.- I'm very honoured too.
0:26:57 > 0:27:03It's terrific to know that I'm the first Cumber man to know that there was a village of New Cumber here.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05I can't believe it, honestly!
0:27:07 > 0:27:10Well, that's a Mapman first -
0:27:10 > 0:27:14rediscovering a village from a map.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18The most likely explanation for New Cumber's disappearance is that like
0:27:18 > 0:27:24other fledgling communities in Ulster, it ceased to be economically viable and died.
0:27:27 > 0:27:34Last leg now and I am passing through present day Dundonel, shown by Raven as a picturesque village.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38He could have little realised that 400 years on
0:27:38 > 0:27:42the Protestant presence here would be still politically charged.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55And this is virtually journey's end.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58I am approaching Belfast.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02Back in 1625, this was the northern edge of Hamilton's estate.
0:28:02 > 0:28:08Today it's the vast Harland and Wolff Shipyard where the Titanic was built.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12No other piece of land that Raven mapped is quite so unrecognisable.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19Thomas Raven's maps of the Clandeboye Estate are maps of occupation.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23They appear to be just a record of the estates, fields, rivers and boundaries.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28But they wouldn't look as they do if it hadn't been for aggressive colonisation.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32Like many of the colonists Raven was a courageous opportunist.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35The estate mapping in Ireland was to make him his fortunes.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Subtitles by BBC Broadcast 2005
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