Road-over-rail bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This single-span metal girder bridge formerly carried a field accommodation track over the former single-track Lisburn-Banbridge Railway.

The abutments are of quarried random rubble blackstone with rusticated and margined quoins and shallow angled buttresses. The span comprises two horizontal lattice girder trusses. Each truss comprises two cross-braced lattice girders of riveted flat bar and angled metal bar. Lengths of railway line are set transversely between the girders’ bottom strings, their ends resting on small cast-iron brackets. Timber pieces set over these transoms support longitudinal timber planks which form the deck.

The parapets comprise four-bar tubular steel bars and wire strung between metal uprights. The ends of the parapets continue in quarried random rubble and terminate in out-projecting regularly-coursed blackstone piers embellished with rusticated and margined quoins. The stonework is coped with oversailing chamfered sandstone blocks. There is also a rusticated and margined blackstone string course around the base of the parapets.

The deck is now heavily overgrown with ivy and is blocked at its N end by a low concrete wall. The former field access track at the S end of the bridge has been completely removed, making it unusable.

The line of the track in the cutting immediately E of the bridge has been infilled, but is still visible at W. There has also been some dumping of debris underneath the span as well.

Setting

Rural
setting adjacent to farm with outbuildings.

Historical information

This bridge lies on the Knockmore Junction – Banbridge section of the Lisburn - Castlewellan line. This section was opened by the Banbridge, Lisburn & Belfast Railway (BLBR) in July 1863. Thomas Jackson, the BLBR’s consultant engineer, designed stations at Hillsborough, Dromore and Banbridge, and was probably also responsible for the design of this bridge.
Upon opening, the line was worked by the Ulster Railway Co, before being amalgamated into the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) in 1876.

Although this section of line is shown on some 1860 OS six-inch maps, these are actually later (undated) revisions of the original plate. It is correctly shown on all OS maps from 1903 onwards.

The line eventually reached Castlewellan in 1906 under the auspices of the GNR(I) and was linked to Newcastle by the Belfast & Co Down Railway in the same year.

The Banbridge – Castlewellan section was closed in 1955, and the remainder of the line in 1956.

Primary sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2. Second edition OS six-inch map, Co Down sheet 27 (1860).
2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4. Third edition OS six-inch map, Co Down sheet 27 (1903-18).

Secondary sources:

1. W.A. McCutcheon, Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland, p.161 (Belfast: HMSO, 1980).
2. S. Johnson, Johnson’s Atlas & Gazetteer of the Railways of Ireland, p.101 (Leicester: Midland Publishing, 1977).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A single-span metal girder accommodation bridge of c.1862 over the former Lisburn-Banbridge Railway. Although partially buried, it survives intact. Its lattice metal girder span is of interest, as few such examples now survive. The bridge is also of historical interest due to its association with the Lisburn – Banbridge Railway. However, its functional integrity has been compromised by the removal of the accommodation track just beyond its south end and it does not meet the statutory and policy tests as a building of special architectural or historic interest.