Glencloy Bridge,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A twin-arched masonry bridge over the Glencloy River, built of squared basalt rubble with pink sandstone used for the voussoirs to the segmental arches, the weatherings to the cutwaters, the platband which occurs at carriageway level, and the copings to the parapets. The parapets return square at the extremities and the coping rises to accommodate the extra width.

Carriageway flat, flanked by a footpath on the east side.

SETTING: The bridge stands in a rural area outside the village of Carnlough with grassy fields and rough ground to each side. Approach road at south end has been widened to provide a car parking lay-by, with a new rubble stone retaining wall now abutting the bridge at right angles on the east side. A concrete retaining wall replaces part of the original stone revetments to the bank on the west side at the north end.

Historical information

Built in 1852 to the design of the County Surveyor for Antrim, Charles Lanyon, architect and engineer, to replace an earlier bridge destroyed by flood in 1851.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 25 (shows a predecessor).
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 25 (marked Glencloy Bridge).

Secondary Sources
1. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), p 87 (item no. 60).
2. IHR 6620.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a good example of early Victorian bridge engineering of conventional but typical design, robust of construction and handsome in appearance, but whose original setting has been spoiled.