Gambles Railway Bridge Newry Canal towpath Killybodagh Road Newry BT35 6TG

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A skew single-span metal girder bridge carrying the main Belfast-Dublin railway over the Newry canal and towpath, erected by the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway Co in 1850-1 (IHR 00062:064).

The span (N-S) was upgraded in the 1990s and comprises two pairs of cross-braced welded-steel beams; metal decking over carries the ballast and double-track line.

The abutments are of squared and rock-faced granite blocks laid in regular courses, with tooled edges to quoins.

Wing walls are of squared granite blocks laid randomly and coped with sandstone copings. They run off and down at an angle from the actual span to terminate in low piers.

The towpath is carried underneath the span on W side of canal, here faced with random rubble. There is also a beam along the E abutment, but access thereto is blocked by stonework at both ends (that at S is a single rusticated block of granite).

Materials:
Metal / stone

Setting:
Located approximately 2 miles S of Poyntzpass near Newry, Gambles railway bridge crosses the Newry canal and parallel towpath, and is accessible via the latter.

Historical information

The current bridge was built in 1850-1 to carry the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway over Newry canal and towpath in Drumantine townland, and responsibility for its design, and the design of other bridges on this line, fell to noted railway engineer Sir John Macneill, and his assistant James Barton (contributions may have been made by other resident engineers). The bridge is first shown, on the 2nd edition of 1860, but is not captioned on any historic maps.
In 1845 an Act incorporated the Dublin & Belfast Junction Railway to build a line between the termini of existing lines at Drogheda (Dublin & Drogheda Railway) and Portadown (Ulster Railway) passing to the W of Newry, and connecting Dublin with Belfast. Work on the line commenced at Drogheda and had reached Killeen, to the S of Newry by July 1850. A line was driven south from Portadown to Goraghwood between 1850 and 1851, and the current bridge was built during this year. Although various contractors were employed on the line between Drogheda and Portadown, which was divided into six separate contracts, William Dargan was the contractor for the Portadown to Goraghwood section (No 6) of the railway.
Carlow-born William Dargan (1799-1867), was a celebrated building contractor and railway entrepreneur, a pupil of Thomas Telford and responsible for numerous roads, railways, canals and docks in Ireland and also in Britain. Dargan won the contract to build Ireland’s first railway line, the Dublin and Kingstown, in 1834 and his successful completion of this line enabled him to win a substantial share of Irish railway construction contracts in the 1840s and 50s, including parts of the Dublin & Belfast Junction Railway.
The Engineer-in-Chief employed by the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway was Louth-born Sir John Macneill (1793-1880), a former pupil of Thomas Telford who worked in England and Scotland until the late 1830s when he was recruited by the Irish Railway commissioners to survey and lay out the railway system in the north of Ireland. Macneill was afterwards employed as chief engineer to numerous Irish railways, receiving a knighthood following his work on the Dublin to Drogheda line, and being described in the press as the ‘King of the Irish Railways’. In the north, Macneill was engineer to Dundalk & Enniskilllen Railway, the Belfast & County Down Railway, the Downpatrick, Dundrum & Newcastle Railway and the Belfast Central Railway. Macneill was professor of Civil Engineering at Trinity College, Dublin (1842-52) and also designed a bridge over the Royal Canal, which was the first iron lattice bridge in the UK. He was responsible for numerous railway bridges and viaducts, including several timber viaducts with masonry abutments for the Dublin & Drogheda Railway. Macneill also designed the Craigmore Viaduct, the Egyptian Arch and the Boyne viaduct (the latter has been called ‘probably the greatest single engineering achievement in Victorian Ireland’ – Geraghty) which were completed as part of the works on the Dublin and Belfast Junction line.
The District Engineer for the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway was James Barton (1826-1913) (several resident engineers were also employed). Barton was employed as a deputy to Macneill after Macneill’s commitments elsewhere, particularly on the Great Southern & Western Railway from Dublin to Cork, had resulted in neglect of his duties towards the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway Board. Barton had been a student of Macneill’s at Trinity, and made important contributions to the design of the Boyne viaduct while working with Macneill, along with resident engineers Alexander Schaw and William Powell (the relative contributions to the design of the various engineers who worked on it were the subject of some controversy in the years after the Boyne viaduct opened). Barton later became a consultant for numerous railway companies, mostly in the north. His obituary named him ‘one of the pioneers of Irish Railway construction and development’. A resident engineer, William Powell, exhibited ‘A ground plan of the ‘Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway with elevations of the principal bridges, viaducts &c’ at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1852.
In August 1850, Sir John Macneill reported to the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway Company on progress with the 16 miles of line from Goraghwood to Portadown under contract to Dargan, ‘The bridges are in a forward state; five of them are very nearly completed with the exception of the parapet, and three others are far advanced’. A year later, in August 1851, Macneill reported that all the bridges (except one over the Cusher River) between Craigmore and Portadown had now been completed. The section of railway between Mullaghglass (to the S of Goraghwood) and Portadown opened to the public on 6th January 1852, but the line from Drogheda to Portadown was not opened until June 1852 after completion of the Craigmore viaduct and it was not until June 1853 that the first train with passengers crossed the Boyne viaduct, thus completing the line between Dublin and Belfast (the Boyne viaduct was initially opened with a temporary structure carrying trains, the permanent structure being completed in April 1855).
Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway became amalgamated into the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) in 1876 and was ultimately taken over by Northern Ireland Railways, a publicly owned train operator, in the 1960s. The span of the current bridge was replaced in the 1990s.

References:
Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/3/40/1 First edition Six Inch OS map (1834)
2. Dublin Evening Post, 2nd August 1845
3. London Evening Standard, 5th July 1850
4. Dublin Evening Packet, 29th August 1850
5. Freeman’s Journal, 29th August 1851
6. Newry Telegraph, 6th January 1852
7. Evening Freeman, 9th May 1853
8. Newry Examiner, 7th December 1853
9. PRONI OS/6/3/40/2 Second edition Six Inch OS map (1860)
10. PRONI OS/6/3/40/3 Third edition Six Inch OS map (1903)
11. PRONI OS/6/3/40/4 Fourth edition Six Inch OS map (1903-18)

Secondary Sources:
12. Dictionary of Irish Architects: www.dia.ie
13. Dictionary of Irish National Biography: www.dib.ie
14. Geraghty, P.J. (2017) “The Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway: The Great Link Uniting Dublin and Belfast” Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historic Society, Vol 29, No1, pp.96-136
15. Hamond, F – scheduling information held by Historic Environment Division
16. McCutcheon, W A (1980) ‘The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’ Belfast: HMSO

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A skew single-span metal girder bridge carrying the main Belfast-Dublin railway over the Newry canal and towpath (IHR 00062:064), located approximately 2 miles S of Poyntzpass near Newry. It was erected by the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway Co in 1850-1.
The span was upgraded in the 1990s; metal decking over carries the ballast and double-track line. The abutments are of squared and rock-faced granite blocks. Wing walls are of squared granite blocks laid randomly and coped with sandstone copings.
Due to the embankment abutments and wing walls being protected through scheduling, and the deck being replaced, Gambles railway bridge does not merit protection through listing.