Culvert

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An 18th C arched masonry culvert carrying the former Cushendun - Ballyvoy road over a stream 600m east of Lough Bridge on what is now the main Cushendun - Ballycastle road. It is surrounded to all sides by remote moorland.
The culvert is constructed of random rubble fieldstones and comprises a shallow segment arch of c.1.85m span. The c.4m wide road is raised hereabouts as it crosses the dip created by the stream. The embankment is pitched on both sides with rubble masonry and also buttressed along its W face. Much of this facing has collapsed on both sites, as has approximately half the arch at its upstream (east) end. There is no evidence of any parapets.
The section of road on which this culvert is situated runs for 4.8km as a single-lane greenway partly surfaced with compacted gravel in an almost dead straight line from the zig-zags near Cushendun to just south of Flughery Bridge. This is the only bridge along this stretch, the other streams being piped across it in small stone drains. At Flughery Bridge, the track turns north-west and continues as a tarmaced road for 6.4km to Ballyvoy and then onwards along the present main road to Ballycastle.

Historical information

This culvert is situated on a virtually straight road between Cushendun and Ballyvoy. The road itself is depicted on Lendrick's 1780 map of Co Antrim and therefore existed long before the construction of the present main road between Cushendun and Ballycastle in the 1830s and '40s. Although no bridges are explicitly marked along the road on Lendrick's map, this one would undoubtedly have been built at the same time as the road.
The road also shown on the 1832 OS six-inch map and subsequent editions along with an unnamed bridge at this location over the stream running into Loughareema near Lough Bridge. The road and culvert are probably of mid-18th century date but it is uncertain whether their construction was financed by the County Antrim Grand Jury or the local landlord, the Earl of Antrim.
When this section of the road was abandoned as a public thoroughfare, it reverted to the owners of the ground on either side. There is no formal public right of way along it.

References - Primary sources:
1. PRONI T/1971/1. J. Lendrick's Map of Co Antrim (1780).
2. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland vol.24: Parishes of Co Antrim 9 - Parish of Culfeightrin (1835), pp 45-46; eds. A Day & P McWilliams (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994).
3. PRONI OS/6/1/9/1. First edition OS 1:10,560 map Co Antrim sheet 9 (1832).
4. PRONI OS/6/1/9/2. Second edition OS 1:10,560 map Co Antrim sheet 9 (1857).
5. PRONI OS/6/1/9/3. Third edition OS 1:10,560 map Co Antrim sheet 9 (1903-04).
6. PRONI OS/6/1/9/4. Fourth edition OS 1:10,560 map Co Antrim sheet 9 (1922).
7. PRONI OS/27/16/2. First edition OS Irish Grid 1:10,000 map sheet 16 (1972-73)

References - Secondary sources:
1. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast & Glens Industrial Heritage, p.77 (entry 24). Belfast: HMSO (1991).
2. Mrs McBride (owner's wife), Watertop Farm, 31 Oct 2019.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Culverts (as bridges of less than 2m span are technically known) of this rudimentary design are not uncommon in the Province. However, this example is of some historical interest in being situated on the precursor of today's Cushendun - Ballycastle road. All its fabric is original and seemingly unmodified, though it is now in a poor state of preservation. Whilst it is most certainly of local heritage interest, it is not of sufficiently special architectrural interest to warrant listing.