Down in the Hollow Traditional Geocache

Down in the Hollow

Part of a series of caches placed around East Belfast to highlight historical/cultural points of interest.

Caches in the series include:

The cache is placed in a small pocket of green space within an urban community. This area, 'The Hollow' as it is locally known, has been made famous through quite of few of Van Morrison's songs.

The Hollow

Fans of Van will know all about ‘the Hollow’ as he sings about it in Brown Eyed Girl.  Released as a single in 1967, the song became Van Morrison’s most played song and over the years has remained a classic hit.

Look out for the tall electricity pylons located in the Hollow.  Van refers to them in bothYou Know What They’re Writing About and On Hynford Street.

“Hey, where did we go, days when the rains came
Down in the hollow, playing a new game,
Laughing and a-running, hey, hey,
Skipping and a-jumping
In the misty morning fog with our, our hearts a-thumping
And you, my brown-eyed girl.”

The Beechie

Connswater, an instrumental track of Van’s, refers to a river known locally in Belfast as the Beechie River.  The Connswater River forms in the Hollow, where the Knock and Loop rivers meet, and it flows through east Belfast, down to the sea at Belfast Lough and is mentioned in the song On Hyndford Street.

“Over and over again
And voices echoing late at night over Beechie River
Ans it’s always being now, and it’s always being no
It’s always now.”

Hyndford Street

Years ago, Belfast was a flourishing centre of industry made up of shipbuilding, linen mills, rope making and tobacco factories, with rows of red-bricked terraces houses.

Van was born in a small ‘two-up-two-down’ terraced house at 125 Hyndford Street, where he lived with his mother Violet and his father George, who worked as an electrician at the nearby Harland & Wolff Shipyard.

He sings fondly of his childhood home, in On Hyndford Street.

“On Hyndford Street where you could feel the silence, at half past eleven on long summer nights
As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg, and the voices whispered across Beechie River, and in the quietness we sank into restful slumber in silence.”

(Information taken from http://interact.discovernorthernireland.com/blog/go-on-the-trail-of-van-morrison-in-belfast/)

This spot is included on the Van Morrison trail which can be downloaded from the Discover Northern Ireland website.

While I was placing this cache I was being observed by a Heron who was trying to catch his lunch!

See if you can spot him in this picture: