Bridge,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A segmental arched masonry bridge over the roadway, originally carrying a railway but now a pedestrian way. Built of snecked white limestone rubble, with shaped voussoirs originally exposed but now obscured by later cement render to the extrados on each face of the arch. Projecting platband at carriageway level 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; squared limestone rubble vault.

SETTING: The bridge stands within the built-up area of the village, spanning a street lined on both sides with terrace houses which adjoin three faces of the abutments; the exception is the south face on the east side where the abutment continues on eastwards beyond a modern corrugated metal gate as a retaining wall to the embankment, exposed for much of the length of the rear plot of a house in Harbour Road except where obscured by a modern lean-to garage.
The carriageway, now with the original railway tracks removed and replaced by a pedestrian path, continues to the east over another similar former railway bridge (HB06/01/011) which spans Harbour Road, and continues to the west between the upper gables of flanking houses in High Street, and past a contemporary lime kiln (HB06/01/015B) which stands behind one of the houses and is attached to the north side of the embankment, before terminating at a public open area.

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.

A plaque on an associated bridge to the east 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."

References – Primary Sources
1. Inscription plaque on associated bridge over Harbour Road, Carnlough.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 25.
Secondary Sources
1. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1980), p 186.
2. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), pp 28 and 87 (item no. 57).
3. IHR 6614:2.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

This is a mid-19th century bridge in a plain but clearly proportioned style, of local historical interest as an important element in the industrial development of the village. Together with the associated bridge to the east over Harbour Road and a lime kiln nearby to the west it forms part of an interesting group.