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 Just outside this area is the Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre. This was completed following an international architectural competition in 2012 by Henegan Peng Architects (of Dublin and Berlin). With a grass roof and built into the hillside it seeks to minimize its carbon footprint, while catering for modern mass tourism. It is perhaps a fitting symbol of a new internationally connected yet ecologically conscious era and region.
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 After WWII The influence of International Modernism became more popular and though in austere times there was not a huge amount of building some one off houses were built in the style. My favourite is 61 Dhu Varren Road, Portrush, completed in 1959. This house was designed by Noel Cambell, a local architect. It has since been proposed twice for protection as a listed building and twice rejected by the District Council and the Historic Buildings Council. Clearly, it divides opinion. Cantilevered out towards the road from Portstewart to Coleraine, its present owners have renovated it sensitively and clearly appreciate its heroic modernist character
 The Victorian age in Coleraine was marked by major improvements in engineering and transport. The Bann navigation allowing boats to travel all the way to Lough Neagh was completed in 1851 (with a salmon fishery at the ‘Cutts’ below Mount Sandel) and in 1855, what was to become the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway, was extended to Coleraine with a branch line to Portrush. This transformed Portrush and the surrounding costal area as it became a major costal resort. That its fine station from 1890, in a half-timbered Elizabethan style, is more than four times the size of the Italianate station in the larger town of Coleraine says a lot. This was not a mere transport hub but a place that reinforced and sold a dream of leisure time by the sea for workers locked in the industrial factories of Belfast (and further afield) for most of the year. Thie sketch uses a photograph taken during the Edwardian period at the height of this usage. The building became the first listed building in Northern Ireland when the legislation was introduced in 1973.
 In the eighteenth century there were also houses built as summer residences along the coast of this area. The most important of these was Seaport Lodge in Portballintrae. This was built by James Leslie of Leslie Hill a large estate near Ballymoney around 1770. it makes an elegant, classical contrast in its white render to the wild green landscape surrounding the building.
 By the mid Eighteenth Century, things had settled down significantly and the economy (fuelled by linen manufacture as well as agriculture) was doing well enough to support investment in buildings. Prosperous linen merchants and landlords followed a similar approach for their houses. Some large houses were commenced for landlords (the lands of the London Guilds were leased out as were some of the church lands). A good example is Cromore House near Portstewart. John Cromie built the central portion of the house ( four windows wide) at this time. The building was remodelled after 1834 when the bays were added and the Greek temple like side wings. John Cromie's family are first recorded in the mid-17th century, based in Tullaghgore, Co. Antrim, however by the mid-18th century he had moved here ( where his his maternal ancestors originated). These ancestors, the Stewarts of Ballyleese, provided the name for Portstewart which he also founded in 1792.
 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.  Dunmull hill fort , sitting up on the flat plane to the south east of Portrush began as a defended settlement in Neolithic times and was occupied again in the Iron Age and then, around AD 600, it became the main royal site for the territory around Coleraine and to the south that was known as Eilne. Because of its defensive position it was used again in later centuries. it is traditionally understood to be a pre- C12th stronghold of the O'Flynns. References to a chair and footprint stone in some sources suggest that it was an inaugural site. It is understood that it was used as a defensive encampment position by the Lagan army in 1649 and as a mass site during penal times. Its last major public use is understood to have been for religious rallies during the Ulster Revival of 1859.
 It has been pointed out to me that I have no drawings of Larne on this website. I do, but it is tucked away within the general Ulster Tour. This sketch, from 2014, shows the fine town hall. Opened in 1870 it is a classic example of Ruskinian Gothic with the polychrome brickwork approach John Ruskin popularised in his writings after visiting Venice. It was also the style of choice for much of our railway buildings which were constructed around the same time. When first opened it contained a large meeting room, offices, a reading room and library and a small museum. The building was very carefully conserved by the District Council about 15 years ago an is in very good condition. Still with a municipal use, it makes a strong contribution to the historic heart of this Ulster town.
 Bonamargy Friary further along the coast road at Ballycastle is thought to date from around 1500. The remains of its east window shows that it once contained refined gothic tracery in the Decorated Style. It is now a monument in state care and an picturesque ruin.
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