Derry Heritage Trails

A short loop through a Plantation-founded Bann-coast village, from its Clothworkers' Company origins to a 17th-century parish church, a 1930s meeting house with transatlantic roots, and two quiet listed river bridges.

Walk from the ruined Plantation church and bawn of Walworth, seat of the London Fishmongers' Company's Ulster estate, to the Company's 1820s model village on Main Street and the ancient church site at Tamlaght Finlagan.

A short loop around a Lough Neagh shore village built almost single-handedly by one Huguenot merchant family — from their quay and steamer landing to the school and streets that grew up around it.

From a Plantation-era bawn to the graveyard where Seamus Heaney is buried, this short loop traces four centuries of one Lough Beg village — planters, poets and all.

A short loop around the Dawson family's estate village on the River Moyola, taking in a rebuilt parish church, a thatched Bridge Street house, the gates of Moyola Park, and the listed terraces of Main Street.

Start at Castlerock's Victorian railway station and long sandy beach, then follow Bishop's Road through the wooded Black Glen into Downhill Demesne. Enter past the Earl-Bishop's gates to reach the roofless ruin of Downhill House, the memorial mausoleum to his brother, and finish at Mussenden Temple, still perched on its eroding clifftop above the Atlantic. One 18th-century bishop, Frederick Hervey, built almost everything on this route.

A short loop around Claudy's Church Street and Main Street crossroads, taking in a Victorian bank, an early 19th-century church, a recorded courthouse and the stone bridge that has carried the road over the River Faughan since before the camera arrived to picture it.

From a medieval castle and Dominican priory by the Bann to the Plantation-era Diamond and its Georgian and Victorian streets — a short loop through Northern Ireland's first chartered Plantation town.

Trace the ramparts and streets of Ireland's last complete walled city, from the siege-era gates and cathedral to the Guildhall clock tower and the Diamond.

Walk the wide Plantation-era streets the Drapers' Company laid out from 1812 — from the old crossroads known simply as 'The Cross' to the 1839 courthouse, an 1843 meeting house and a church whose site predates the town itself.

From a ruined Augustinian priory and an O'Cahan chief's carved tomb by the River Roe, to a Plantation-era castle and the Victorian shopfronts of Main Street — a short walk through eight centuries of the Roe Valley.

Follow the tree-lined Main Street of a 17th-century Plantation village rebuilt in the 1820s by the Grocers' Company of London — from the green where Muff became Eglinton to the rectory built over a besieged Plantation castle.

A short loop around a small Sperrins foothill village — from the old Parochial Hall on Main Street, past an early medieval rath on the village's edge, to the bridge where a legendary highwayman is said to have humbled a British general.

Walk the broad plantation-era Main Street the Canning family laid out nearly 400 years ago, from a rebuilt 17th-century parish church to a 1920s clock-tower memorial, Victorian bank and Georgian bridges.

A short walk through Greysteel's origins as two small Foyle-side townlands — Gresteel Beg and Gresteel More — that grew into a farming and linen village strung along the old Derry–Limavady road. Stops range from a possible early-medieval church site to Plantation-era settlement and Victorian farmhouses and cottages, tracing four centuries of rural life in the parish of Faughanvale.

Trace Kilrea from the old hilltop church that gave the town its name, round the Mercers'-planned Diamond, to the Scots Kirk and its Fairy Thorn — a compact loop through a River Bann plantation town.

Walk the Main Street that gave the world the Londonderry Air — from Jane Ross's Georgian doorstep to the courthouse, chapel and river bridge that make up the heart of this Plantation-era market town.

From a Romanesque crucifixion lintel carved a thousand years ago to a Victorian bank and a railway line closed since 1959, this short loop around Church Street, Main Street and Hall Street traces the town that grew up at the foot of the Glenshane Pass.

Walk the streets the Salters' Company laid out around Magherafelt's Diamond — a courthouse, an old gaol, a market yard, and the town's three main churches, all founded or endowed by the same 17th-century London plantation patron.

Walk the wide, straight streets the Drapers' Company of London laid out for one of Ulster's earliest planned towns, from Georgian churches and a former court house to a 17th-century plantation manor just up the road.

A short loop around a Victorian seaside resort — from a cliff-top convent castle and a Georgian parish church to a working harbour and a 1924 war memorial on the prom.

A short crossroads loop through a Sperrin foothills estate village — a former plantation dispensary turned coaching inn, and the two Victorian-era churches that still anchor Swatragh's skyline.

Cross Craigavon Bridge to the east bank and follow the Waterside's Victorian spine — a rebuilt railway station, a run of 19th-century churches and schools, a Famine-era workhouse, and a star-fort barracks turned public square.