The abbey behind the Abbey Centre
The name goes back a lot further than the shops. This corner of Newtownabbey sits beside Whiteabbey, a lough-shore village said to take its name from a medieval "white abbey" — a monastery whose pale stone walls are said to have stood near the shore of Belfast Lough centuries before anyone dreamed of retail parks. When seven villages were joined into a brand-new town in 1958, the abbey came along in the name — Newtownabbey — and twenty years later it was borrowed once more for the shopping centre.
The Abbey Centre opened in 1978, which makes it one of Northern Ireland's longest-serving shopping centres — and remarkably loyal ones at that: Dunnes Stores arrived in 1979 and has traded here ever since. The centre grew in waves — a major expansion around 2000 brought Primark, Next later built what's said to be its biggest store in Northern Ireland, a purpose-built 42,000 sq ft flagship, and Primark eventually moved into the old BHS unit and spread out.
The newest chapter began in 2025, when Northern Irish couple Michael and Lesley Herbert bought the centre and renamed it Lesley Abbeycentre. They've since announced expansion plans — more stores, new café and restaurant units and a multi-storey car park — so the 1978 stalwart is heading into its sixth decade still growing.
What earns it a place on a days-out map is honest and simple: when the rain is sideways and the family needs out of the house, this is a warm, flat, free-to-park lap of 70-plus shops with cheap food halfway round — with Cave Hill standing over the car park to remind you where you are.