Bridge No18, East of Leap Lane, Railway Bridge, Omagh, Co Tyrone

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Triple-span stone former railway bridge, erected c.1850. Now disused, the bridge is on an east/west axis, formerly carrying the GNR Omagh Enniskillen branch rail line over the Camowen River.

Three raised semi-circular arches formed in rock-faced ashlar stone voussoirs having tooled stone ashlar soffits and two concrete footings forming V-cutwaters. Random coursed rock-faced stone ashlar spandrels rise to rock-faced stone coping with steel railing above. To either end, on both elevations, is a full-height tapering pier formed in rock-faced stone ashlar surmounted by stone coping. The carriageway is now overgrown and enclosed to either side by a simple steel railing.

Walling Rock-faced stone ashlar

Historical information

The bridge first appears on the second edition OS map of 1853 (railway lines have been added to a revision of this edition available at PRONI). The railway is captioned ‘Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Railway’. By the third edition of 1906 the railway is captioned ‘GNR (Portadown and Londonderry Branch)’ and by the fourth edition ‘GNR (Ireland)’.

McCutcheon comments on the development of the railway, “…in November 1856, the directors of the Portadown & Dungannon Railway Company…sought authority to extend their line to Omagh and lease it to the Ulster Railway Company. In August 1857 Royal Assent was given to a bill incorporating the Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Railway Company and the 27 miles of single-track line from Dungannon to Omagh were built with £100,000 of share capital and £33,000 of loans…the company was compelled to drive a tunnel of single-track width almost half a mile in length, through Windmill Hill, before the railway could be brought up to Dungannon. Despite the substantial engineering involved, within three years the line had been pushed across the windswept moorlands of the south Sperrins by Pomeroy and Carrickmore to Sixmilecross, Beragh and Omagh, where a junction was made with the Londonderry & Enniskillen Railway on 2 September 1861. On completion, the 41 miles of single-track way from Portadown to Omagh were leased to the Ulster Railway Company for 999 years at a minimum rate of £10,000 per annum and participation in surplus receipts over £23,000 per annum – a figure exceeded in almost every year of operation.” (p.107)

The line was taken over by the Ulster Railway company on 1 January 1876 and this merged with the Northern Railway Company on 1 April 1876 to form a new company called ‘The Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland)’. (p.111)

References:

Primary Sources

PRONI OS/6/6/43/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1833)
PRONI OS/6/6/43/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1854)
PRONI OS/6/6/43/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906)
PRONI OS/6/6/43/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1936-8)

Secondary Sources

McCutcheon, W.A. “The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland,” London: HMSO, 1980.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This triple-span bridge built c. 1860 as part of the Portadown & Dungannon Railway exhibits high quality stone masonry and with its tall arches forms a graceful composition. As well as being of industrial importance, this bridge constitutes a significant landmark here as part of the line between Dungannon and Omagh. It is a robust example of the type and an important element in railway history here.