Railway Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Remnants of a single-span girder bridge which carried a single-track railway over a one-and-a-half lane minor road. Only the supporting walls now survive. The abutments are of large regularly-coursed rock-faced limestone blocks, with margined edges to their quoins. The angled wing walls are of smaller limestone blocks, laid randomly and embellished with finely dressed copings. The coping stones continue as a slightly projecting top course to the abutments. Although the road is not at right angles to the line of the railway, the bridge abutments are orthogonal (ie not skew). The actual railway embankment survives on both sides.

Historical information

This line, between Clones and Lisbellaw, opened in 1858, and the final section to Enniskillen in the following year. This bridge is cited as a 'viaduct' on the 1857 OS 6" map (although only having a single span). The D&ER became the Irish North Western Railway in 1862. In 1876 the INW amalgamated with the Ulster and Northern Railways to form the Great Northern Railway. The line closed in 1957.

Primary sources:
1. OS 6" map, 2nd edition (1857), Co Fermanagh sheet 40 (PRONI PS 6/4/40/2)/

Secondary sources:
1. S. Johnson, Johnson's Atlas & Gazetteer of the Railways of Ireland (Leicester, 1997).
2. W. A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland, p.165 and plate 34 (Belfast, 1980).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Too little now remains to make this structure of special interest.