Crevenagh Bridge,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-span hump-back road-over-railway bridge, built c.1840, formerly carrying the avenue of Crevenagh Farm over the rail-line to Crevenagh Road. Now severed by the Great Northern Road and in use by a dwelling to the west of Crevenagh Road.

Abutments, spandrels and parapets are squared random coursed rock-faced basalt. The parapet coping is roughly dressed rock-faced limestone. Carried on a single round-headed arch with rock-faced voussoirs having tooled edges and red brick soffit. Battered buttresses to both abutments taper inwards to parapet level and are formed in rock-faced basalt. To the east the abutments are curved and drop in level.

Setting:-
A single-lane bitmac carriageway now serves a modern dwelling to the east, with no sign of the former rail line. The ground level of the former rail line appears to have been built up and now serves as a private garden to the dwelling.

Walls:- Basalt/ red brick soffit

Historical information

The bridge is first shown on the second edition OS map of 1854. The railway is captioned the “Portadown, Dungannon & Omagh Railway.”

McCutcheon (1980) writes that the “‘Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway Company’ was incorporated in 1845, authorised to construct a single track line of railway extending southwards from a Londonderry terminus lying well to the south of the Great Northern Station in Foyle Street, a line which would have adhered more closely to the western bank of the Foyle, passed over onto the east bank from a point near Lifford, then over the canal, through Strabane, and then southwards towards Newtownstewart and Omagh” (McCutcheon, p.109).

However, McCutcheon explains “due to the shortness of the line, storm damage and competition from the Strabane canal and Foyle navigation, this first section of the company line was not a great success. It was not until the construction of the line to Omagh [was finished] in 1852…that the first benefits of the railway became apparent.”

“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 catchments areas, and direct rail connection between Dublin, Belfast and Londonderry was now possible” (McCutcheon, p.110).

The “Tyrone Constitution” reported on 14th February 1851 on the line in progress between Strabane and Newtownstewart that “there are to be four iron bridges two raised upon iron cylinders. The iron work is in rapid progress, and owing in some degree to the present favourable weather, there is every hope that the line will be open in August next. We have also good reason for believing that if the Company receives that support which it deserves, the line will be extended as far as this town before the end of the year. The merchants of the local towns have perhaps done as much in the way of taking shares as could reasonably be expected but it is with the landed proprietors along the line that the most valuable resources of assistance rest. We need hardly observe that the value of land is materially enhanced by the facility of transit for produce of every kind, which a local line of railway supplies.”

The Ulster Transport Authority closed the line from Portadown to Derry via Omagh on 3 February 1965, ending 113 years of railway history (Mitchell, p.40).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/35/1-First Edition OS Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/35/2-Second Edition OS Map (1854)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/35/3-Third Edition OS Map (1905-6)

Secondary Sources

1. McCutcheon, W. A. “The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland.” Belfast: Department of the Environment. H.M.S.O, 1980.
2. Mitchell, C. J. Haldane, Ed. Images of Omagh and District. Vol. 7. Omagh: Rotary Club of Omagh, 1999.
3. “Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway.” “Tyrone Constitution.” 14 February 1851.
4. “Tyrone Constitution.” 3 September 1847.

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 modest former road-over-railway bridge, exhibiting high quality masonry techniques and now accommodating a drive to a private house. Although no longer serving its original function, the bridge stands as one of the few remaining railway structures of merit along the former Portadown, Dungannon & Omagh Railway line, and is representative of the late nineteenth century infrastructural developments in County Tyrone.