Clontylew Bridge, Clontylew Road, Portadown, Co Armagh BT62 1RE

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-span road bridge constructed between 1855 and 1858 under the guidance of the renowned engineer William Dargan to carry the Clontylew Road over the railway line, now closed, from Portadown to Dungannon.
The bridge is of split-stone construction throughout. Its parapets are coped with larger slabs laid flat, some tied with inset metal cleats, and the single segmental arch is dressed in split-stone voussoirs. As the road runs at an angle to the line of the former railway, the approach parapets to the bridge angle in opposite directions, forming a chicane in plan. It is slightly battered on both faces.
A service pipe is carried along the bridge on the west-facing side.
Setting:
The bridge is in an elegant rural
setting, on a north-south axis on Clontylew Road, and crosses the former Portadown to Dungannon railway line to the northwest of number 15. An attractive tree-lined road provides the approach to the bridge from the north. To the east is a steep wooded embankment, while to the west, the embankment quickly tapers into a field, a more pastoral setting that descends gently west towards a lake.
Materials:
Split stone with raised parapets and voussoirs of split stone.

Historical information

This bridge was built as part of the Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Railway [PD&O] to carry what is now Clontylew Road over the new track. The line from Portadown to Dungannon was constructed between 1855 and 1858 with the renowned engineer William Dargan as contractor and opened on Easter Monday (5 April) 1858, with the route to Omagh completed in 1861. The bridge is shown on the OS map of 1859 marked ‘Clontylew Br[idge]’.

In 1860 the PD&O line was leased to the Ulster Railway and in 1876 the latter became part of the Great Northern Railway [GNR]. Throughout this period the bridge itself spanned what was a single track, but between 1899-1902 the stretch between Portadown and Annaghmore became a double track.

Growing competition with road travel led to the closure of much of Northern Ireland’s railway network by the Stormont Government during the 1950s. In 1959 the former PD&O line, by this time serviced by smaller railcars, was reduced to the stretch from Portadown to Trew & Moy and cut back to a single track once again. It remained in operation until closed by the Ulster Transport Authority in February 1965.

References – Primary sources
1 ‘Ulster Gazette’ – 9 June 1855, p.3
2 ‘The Ulsterman’ – 5 April 1858, p.2
3 ‘Londonderry Sentinel’ – 7 May 1858, p.1
4 OS map county series, Armagh sheet 5 - 1859, 1905-06, 1954; IG sheet 181-9 – 1965

Secondary sources
5 McCutcheon, W.A. ‘The industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’, (HMSO, Belfast, 1980), pp.161-62
6 Fitzgerald, J.D., ‘The Derry road in colour – Colourpoint Transport 2’, (Colourpoint Press, Omagh, 1995)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest
R. Age

Evaluation

Clontylew Bridge is a single-arch masonry arch road bridge over the former Dungannon to Portadown railway line, designed and built between 1855 and 1858 by the island’s foremost railway engineer, William Dargan. Its architectural style (squared rubble basalt), proportion (elegant segmental arch) and embellishment (sandstone voussoirs and parapet coping) are typical of the mid-1800s and make it a fine example from the period. It is also of local historical interest as a tangible reminder of the former railway. It makes a fine contribution to the landscape, its parapets providing a visual terminus on the tree-lined Clontylew Road. At the same time, from the west, the bridge is an elegant set piece in a pastoral landscape. It is also of local historical interest to have an attested designer/ builder and date of erection.
This bridge is special as it is a fine remaining example of the works of the foremost railway engineer William Dargan as well as a reminder of the former railway line between Dungannon and Portadown.