Country diary: ancient survivors and wild dune edges

Magilligan Point, County Derry The botany of the spit was once so rich that it was known as the ‘medicine garden of Europe’The view from the top of the basalt outcrop of Windy Hill is sublime. Below, the flat expanse of Magilligan Point, County Derry, narrows into the distance as it almost reaches across the mouth of Lough Foyle to the heather-topped green hills and little white cottages of Donegal, six miles away. Most of the sandy spit has been converted into grazed farmland, the f