Get an atmospheric taste of traditional life in East Belfast on a tour of our past. Start in Queen’s Island, tracing the story of Titanic at the old Harland & Wolff shipyard. See the offices where she was designed, the slipways where she was launched, the pump house and dry dock where her superstructure was added and SS Nomadic, her tender ship.

A short bus or cab ride away you can discover how many of the workers on Titanic might have lived. Several streets around the Templemore Avenue area survive from those times, not least the two-up two-down terrace houses of McMaster Street, just off Newtownards Road, many of whose inhabitants would have made the short walk each day to the shipyard.

Those workers would have ‘splashed out’ at the Victorian Templemore Public Baths in nearby Templemore Avenue, where you can still see the old public baths used for personal washing. A popular swimming pool, used by both actor James Ellis and soccer star George Best, it remains an important part of local life.

You can see old-fashioned sweets, as well as honeycomb and fudge, being made in the traditional way at Aunt Sandra’s Candy Factory at 60 Castlereagh Road, while film lovers should head for the wonderful Art Deco Strand Cinema at 165 Holywood Road. Opened in 1935, its design influenced by the proximity of Harland & Wolff, it looks like a ship with its curved walls and foyer lights in the form of portholes.

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