Only one remnant remains above ground of the town walls of Coleraine.  This is  the steeply sloping earthen  rampart between St Patrick's Church and  Anderson Park. This part of the wall was always made of earth, though there was a  further moat at the base.

Today, the main architectural remnant of the Plantation in this area is the town plan of Coleraine. This, like the renamed Londonderry, was completely redesigned and rebuilt to a new, rational, grid layout by a new company - the Honourable the Irish Society - formed by a partnership between the 12 London guilds charged with colonising the new county. At Coleraine only the church  and  reused monastery remained in their original position. This reflected the latest thinking of how an ‘ideal’ settlement should be laid out. Building upon the legacy of the Romans, and influential in the American colonies, both settlements had a ‘diamond’  (market square) at their centre. This reflected the commercial focus of the City of London but also marked a change with the past. These are post medieval settlements. In previous eras a castle or church would have taken on this focus role. The drawing shown here is a copy of a map drawn of the settlement in 1622.  Though the stone walls shown never replaced the original earthen ramparts.

A well-preserved example  of a bawn be seen in Bellaghy (Vintners) and a dramatic ruin is preserved at Brackfield (Skinners). Both are Monuments in State Care. 

Just over 100 years after the construction of Dunluce, the old Gaelic order came to an end. After 9 years of war, the great chieftains east of the Bann: O'Neill and O'Donnell, surrendered, but the new King James of England and IV of Scotland (who was used to the Scottish clans), regranted them their lands. in 1607, however, they left for Spain no longer able to stand the new ways and their lands were declared forfeit. This left a huge part of Ulster under the direct control of the King and paved the way for a grand experiment. A complete reordering of the area, with new towns and a new population of the new religion, imported from England and Scotland, would be undertaken. This would bring a new area into the market economy. It would be a 'plantation'. This task was very expensive and so, not for the last time, the City of London was persuaded to invest. A new county - Co Londonderry  - was created between Coleraine and the renamed city of Londonderry and the area in between was allocated in 'proportions' to 12 companies of London Merchant Guilds. Other land was allocated tp former English soldiers and to the Church of Ireland and remaining  land to  native lords favoured by the new rulers.

Each company had to agree to import settlers, construct villages and build defensive fortified houses known as 'bawns' on their proportions. The bawns all had a walled courtyard with projecting towers known as flankers' at the corners. Settlements in this area were created at Articlave (clothworkers), Macosquinn (Merchant Taylors), Agivey (iIronmongerers) and near Kilrea at Movanagher (Mercers). The only bawn to survive in the former Coleraine council area is at Movanagher and here it has  become the walls of a farmyard. It has lost its house and much of its flankers but it remains a remnant, of what must have been a time of significant change.

The power of the Norman lordship never extended far inland from the coast in this region. The ‘Bailiwick of Twescard’ which had once extended from Greencastle in Co Donegal to the Glens of Antrim had contracted by 1333 to the town of Coleraine and the Bush valley to the east. By the 1460’s the De Mandevilles had abandoned or sold their remaining manors to the MacQuillan’s. They renamed the area An Rúta (the Route) and constructed their power base at  Dunluce.

Dunluce today, is a dramatic ruin perched high on costal rocks with a classic skyline which is one of the key tourism images of Northern Ireland. Though the ‘Dun’ part of its name and a souterrain (underground passage) suggest early occupation, and though there are C13th and C14th records of a manor here, all architectural and documentary evidence suggest a construction date of c.1500 for the earliest visible parts of the castle. These are the circular NE and SE towers with the curtain wall between.  The MacDonnell’s captured the castle in the 1550’s and the gate house with its Scottish corbeled bartizans dates from that time. ​

The Normans brought a very different style of organisation and introduced the feudal system common across the rest of Europe at that time. The church was also going through significant change and the introduction of Gothic architecture (pointed windows) roughly coincided with their arrival. 

The ruins of Ballywillan Parish Church outside Portrush, are late twelfth or early thirteenth century in origin, and were used to the nineteenth century, when the parish relocated to the town. Here, a single pointed window (lancet) typical of early gothic can be seen.

The same 1622 map shows the Dominican Abbey constructed in Coleraine in 1274.  By 1622 it was in use as a residence and the roof of the church appears to have been removed, but the drawing shows that it followed the standard European plan of buildings arranged around a courtyard or cloister. This reflected a connection to the ideas of the wider world in the Norman settlement. Shane Boyle, the last prior, is recorded as having surrendered his building to the King's commissioners in 1543. No above ground remnants can be seen today. But the footprint of the building was revealed in a 1999 archaeological investigation before the construction of a shopping centre.

Even though it changed hands between Scottish and English Normans (because of power struggles between the new rulers), Coleraine became a key settlement on the north coast, with a defensible bridge, and eventually a further motte on the western side of the river and acted as a strong base from which to raid the Gaelic Irish further inland. This Motte is indicated on the 1622 map of Coleraine occupied by the bawn of the Clothworkers Company. The site beyond the western end of the Bann bridge  is understood to be behind the current Waterside terrace accessed via the aptly named 'Castle Lane'. However, no remnants survive above ground. 

On the opposite side of the Bann from Camus is this further Norman fortification. Another motte and Bailey, it is located  on a height overlooking an important  ancient ford over the river ( the first above Toome) and there are  further more ancient earthworks guarding access to this and on the nearby Loughan Island (which also had a wooden, McQuillan tower house in the Sixteenth century). The famous Bann Disc a  11cm  Iron Age bronze disc  with  a fine  'riskele' pattern, on top comprised of three stylised bird heads, with a similar three-pronged circular outline in the centre . It was found in dredging work here in 1938 and is used as the motif of the Coleraine Historical Society. It is currently on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.