Bridge and steps

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A segmental arched masonry bridge over the main roadway, originally carrying a railway but now a pedestrian way, incorporating a smaller and lower segmental archway to one end spanning the pavement, and a rectangular tower and flight of exterior steps to the other end.

Built of snecked white limestone rubble with shaped voussoirs to the smaller pedestrian archway, but later cement render covering the extrados to each face of the main arch. Projecting platband at carriageway level to the main arch running on into the abutments which are broken forward to form piers projecting up above parapet level and topped with oversailing courses and blocking courses. Modern steel railings mounted on parapets and running across top of piers. Flat carriageway; vaults of square limestone rubble.
Outer face of southern parapet has a stone commemorative plaque recessed into it, with a moulded stone surround; plaque bears an inscription as follows – "Carnlough Railway and Harbour. Projected and commenced by Charles Stewart Vane, Marquis of Londonderry 1853. Finished by Frances Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry 1854".
Smaller pedestrian archway over pavement on west side spans between western abutment pier and main abutment, which also breaks forward slightly on the south side to form an end pier which rises only level with the parapet and does not project above it.

At the east end on the south side is attached a rectangular tower, with segmental gables, which rises to parapet height, built of limestone rubble with red brick block quoins to the south-west corner; similar brick dressings to a rectangular doorway and rectangular window opening in the narrow front elevation facing west with plain brick surround to an ocular opening surmounting the doorway; doorway contains a pair of rectangular timber tongued and grooved sheeted doors; window blocked up on inside and ocular opening closed on outside by a circular wooden panel; coved roof covering of corrugated iron sheeting. Long south wall is blank with a flight of concrete exterior steps built against it contained by a limestone rubble wall surmounted by modern steel railings which rise to a brick block-dressed limestone rubble pier; steps continue to carriageway level through modern steel gate at the top landing; east gable of tower at top landing contains a rectangular doorway now closed with a plywood panel; barbed wire covers the top of the gable. Balustrade wall of exterior steps continues to the east as a retaining wall for the former railway embankment. Retaining wall of embankment to north side at east end also of limestone rubble but better quality; both walls surmounted by modern steel railings.

SETTING: The bridge stands in the main street of the town built between the gables of an adjoining terrace house on the south side at the west end (HB06/01/010A) and the former town hall at the north side (HB06/01/012) with the tower of the town hall also built against it and rising above it. The carriageway, now with the original railway tracks removed and replaced by a pedestrian path, continues to the east to an elevated grassed area above the harbour, marked by a set of modern steel gates, and continues to the west over another similar but simpler former railway bridge (HB06/01/015A) which spans High Street.
At the base of the bridge, in Harbour Road, on the south side, a telephone kiosk (HB06/01/035) stands adjacent to the abutment pier at the west end, and a free-standing limestone rubble pier stands on the pavement at the bottom of the steps at the east end.

Historical information

Built in 1853-4 by the Marquis and Marchioness of Londonderry, to the designs of engineers from Seaham in Durham, to carry the former mineral railway which brought mineral ores and limestone from the quarries in the hillside behind the town, to the harbour. The attached tower with steps was added later; they do not appear on the 1857 OS map.

References – Primary Sources
1. Inscription plaque on bridge.
2. J.B. Doyle, Tours in Ulster: a hand book to the antiquities and scenery of the north of Ireland (Dublin, 1854), p 215.
3. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 25.

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Glens of Antrim (Belfast, 1971), pp 3, 19 and 20.
2. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1980), pp 185-6, and plates 44.5 and 139.1.
3. M. McSparran, C. Dallat and J. Irvine, Oh Maybe it was Yesterday (Glens of Antrim Historical Society, 1980), p 16.
4. C. Dallat, The Road to the Glens (Belfast, 1989), p 19.
5. P. Magill, Garron Tower (Belfast, 1990), pp 54 and 61.
6. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), p 87 (item no. 57).
7. IHR 6614:1.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

This is a mid-19th century bridge, in a plain but clearly proportioned style. It is of special historic interest as an important element in the industrial development of the village, and despite later alterations and additions which detract from its original appearance and character, along with adjoining buildings it still forms part of an interesting group.