BRIDGE NO 2,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-span bridge, built c.1850, carrying railway line (now disused) over the Camowen River. Squared-and-snecked rockfaced sandstone piers and spandrels; flat rockfaced coping to carriageway (no parapet). To north and south perpendicular retaining wall terminates in low square pillar. Single semi-circular arch with dressed rockfaced voussoirs; soffit is coursed ashlar.

The carriageway is approximately 3m wide. Bridge is now free-standing within rural agricultural land with remains of embankment to east and west.

Roof: N/A
Walling: Sandstone
Windows: N/A
RWG: N/A

Historical information

The bridge first appears on the second edition OS map of 1853. 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 Sperrrins 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 annnum 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

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

Secondary Sources

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

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A single-span bridge, built c.1850, carrying the former railway line (now disused) over the Camowen River. This simple sandstone bridge demonstrates well-crafted masonry detailing and dressings. However, with the removal of the railway its merit is much reduced and there are other, better examples listed.