Burnside Bridge,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-arched bridge over the Black Burn river, built of squared basalt rubble set in irregular courses, with dressed sandstone voussoirs to the segmental arch. Copings and platband are also of dressed sandstone, the copings being feather-edged, canted upwards at the extremities, and let into the parapet at intervals. Abutments are broken forward to form slightly battered buttresses.

Vault is of squared limestone; carriageway is flat. There is an incised mason's mark on the inner face of the western parapet at the north end.

SETTING: The bridge stands in a very rural area on the coastline, with a rocky foreshore on the coastal side and steep wooded banks on the inland side.

Historical information

The year of construction is not known but it appears on the OS map of 1857 and may be presumed to date from c 1842-3 when the coast road from Glenarm to Cushendall was in progress of being built, to the designs of the County Surveyor, Charles Lanyon.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 25.
Secondary Sources
1. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), p 86 (item no. 52).
2. IHR 6610.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is an early Victorian bridge in a plain but clearly proportioned style designed by an important Irish architect and engineer, which stands in an unaltered condition in an unspoiled setting.