Castle Ward is an 18th-century[1] National Trust property located near the village of Strangford, in County Down, Northern Ireland, in the townland of the same name.
[3] There is a tower house in the estate's farmyard, built as a defensive structure during 1610 by Nicholas Ward.
When his younger brother, Edward, died in 1812, leaving a young son, the youngest brother Robert took the opportunity to relocate the insane Lord Bangor into a smaller house in Downpatrick and strip Castle Ward of everything valuable.
He and his descendants restored the building and its furnishings, but on the death of Maxwell Ward, 6th Viscount Bangor in 1950 the house and estate were given in lieu of death duties to the Government of Northern Ireland, who presented the house and its gardens to the National Trust in 1952.
[6][7][page needed] Castle Ward was used as a filming location for Winterfell in the HBO television series Game of Thrones.