Walkmills Bridges

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two cut sandstone bridges on Drumsurn Road on either side of the entrance drive to Walkmills farmhouse (HB02/08/017). To the south east a very low segmental arch over the former mill race. The head of the arch is 500mm above the base of the stream. Voussoirs are cut to fit the curve. There is no sign of the bridge on the road above. On the north east side of the road the stone above the voussoirs is badly damaged by vegetation.

The main bridge to the north west of the entrance road has a single segmental arch 2½ metres wide with a springing about 3 metres above an unnamed tributary of the Castle River. (This stream was used as the mill race for the former flax mill see HB02/08/017). As a small bridge it is unusually well constructed from cut ashlar sandstone and some thought has been given to its appearance. On each side the springing stone of the arch has been returned and projects from the face of the structure as the head of a simple pilaster. Two metres above the arch a coping stone below the level of the road projects. On the upstream (north east) side the coping gracefully drops on each side as the face of the bridge curves out to flank the stream. There is no parapet on the road and pedestrians are protected by a modern timber fence.

Historical information

A bridge with two arches is described in Ballymully townland by the Ordnance Survey Memoirs. These were ’12 feet wide and four and a half feet high, the other 6 feet wide and 3 and a half feet high’. The bridge lay on the ‘accommodation road which lies north and south through the centre of the parish’ today known as Drumsurn Road. However the present line of the road is changed from that of the 1830s which was much closer to the buildings. The 1848 Ordnance Survey Map shows the line of the present road dotted indicating that the change was in contemplation at that time. The bridges thus likely date from the 1850s. This late construction date perhaps partly explains the care of the construction. Another reason is that the sandstone quarry which provided stone for much of the houses in the region is directly adjacent.

References:
OSS 1831
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 9 p. 5
Ordnance Survey Maps 1831 and 1848
IHR Reference for Walkmills i.e. 1684.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A small, picturesque, and carefully considered bridge, which has an architectural quality more normally associated with estate buildings. Considered with its neighbour both are an important remaining part of the convoluted mill race system of Walk Mills where the mill race of the cloth mill was diverted upstream of the tributary river to increase the head for the flax mill. Even with this engineering the mills had to be run on separate days (see history of HB02/08/017). It makes an interesting piece of Industrial Archaeology.