Clarks Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-span road bridge, built c.1850, carrying Tully Road over railway line (now disused). Squared-and-snecked rockfaced sandstone piers, abutments, spandrels and parapet terminating in substantial piers to each side; dressed rockfaced sandstone string course to carriageway level; dressed rockfaced coping to parapet. Single elliptical-headed arch with dressed rockfaced voussoirs springing from rockfaced string-course. Arch soffit is squared-and-snecked.

The carriageway is approximately 4m wide. Set within rural location with dwellings to west. Road rises to carriageway at east; land to east and west bounded to road by hedging.

Roof N/A
Walling Squared-and-snecked sandstone
Windows N/A
RWG N/A

Historical information

‘Clark’s Bridge’ first appears on the second edition of the OS Map (1854) carrying a road over the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway. By the third edition of 1905, this has become the Great Northern Railway.

McCutcheon comments on the formation of the Londonderry & Enniskillen Railway Company in 1845, which was “authorised to construct a single-track line of railway extending southwards from a Londonderry terminus…by April 1847 the single-track line had reached Strabane…The cost of construction was relatively low, about £10,000 per mile…However, due to the shortness of the line, storm damage…and competition from the Strabane Canal and Foyle Navigation, this first section of the company’s line was not a great success. It was not until the construction of the line to Omagh, reached in 1852, Fintona (1853) and Enniskillen (1854) that the full benefits of the railway became apparent. Undoubtedly the new line of rail communication brought important commercial advantages to the towns which it served and indirectly, to the agricultural lands both arable and pastoral in character, lying along the valleys of the Foyle, its headstreams and tributaries, and to the flanking upland areas to both east and west. Omagh and Strabane, in particular, emerged as major market centres from which goods and livestock could be conveyed northwards to the port of Londonderry. As we have seen, in 1861 Omagh was reached from the south east, across the watershed separating the Foyle and Bann catchment areas, and direct rail communication between Dublin, Belfast and Londonderry was now possible. In 1860 the Londonderry-Enniskillen line was leased to the Dundalk & Enniskillen Railway Company, subsequently the Irish North Western Railway Company” In 1876 this merged with two other companies to form the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland) (p.109/10)

References:

Primary Sources
1.PRONI OS/6/6/25/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1854)
2.PRONI OS/6/6/25/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1905)

Secondary Sources
1.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
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A single-span road bridge, built c.1850, carrying Tully Road over the railway line (now disused). Robust stonework detailing and dressings have survived and the structure remains unaltered and in good condition. This bridge was built during the mid-nineteenth-century to carry the road over the new section of the Londonderry to Enniskillen railway. It is one of a series of bridges that remain as an important remnant of the route and part of the industrial heritage of the district.