Railway Bridge over Glen River

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A skew arched brick and stone bridge carries the main Belfast-Dublin railway over the Glen River a short distance SE of Dunmurry Station.
The bridge is built of ashlar Triassic sandstone except for its arch soffit and wing walls. The arch is of semicircular profile and has cut stone voussoirs (with curved outside edges). Its soffit is of brick and slightly instepped from the sandstone abutments. Although the arch is set skewly to the line (not at right angles), the angle was such that bricks could nevertheless be laid orthogonally (i.e. with their bedding joints parallel with the spring line). Tapered buttresses run up each side of the arch. Above the crown is a shallow platband, over which is a projecting string course; both these courses continue around the tops of the buttresses. Above the string course is a parapet coped with sandstone and terminating in advanced rectangular piers, also capped with sandstone. At the upstream left-bank end of the bridge, the high embankment is retained by a curved wing wall of squared rubble blackstone.

Historical information

The railway between Belfast and Lisburn was opened by the Ulster Railway Company in 1839. It has the distinction of being the first railway in Ulster and the second in Ireland (after the Dublin-Kingstown railway, opened in 1834). The line was extended to Armagh in 1848, and to Dublin (via Portadown) in 1852.
It was constructed by William Dargan (‘father’ of Irish railways) under the direction of John Godwin (who went on to become Professor of Engineering at Queen’s College, Belfast). The consultants to the Ulster Railway Co were William Bald (who built the Antrim Coast Road) and Thomas Jackson Woodhouse, Co Antrim’s first County Surveyor.

Originally this line was a single track at 6ft 2in gauge. However, with the change to a 5ft 3in gauge throughout Ireland in 1846, it was re-laid as two lines, both to the new gauge (the doubling of the track had been allowed for in the depths of all the bridges along it).

This arched bridge is undoubtedly an original feature of the line as there is no evidence of any previous timber or metal girder span. The red Triassic sandstone with which it is built was obtained from the Moira/Magheralin district.
In 1876, the Ulster Railway Company amalgamated with various other railway enterprises to form the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland). The Ulster Transport Authority took over operations in 1958, and the Northern Ireland Railway Co in 1968. Translink is now responsible for the line’s operation.

References - Secondary sources:
1. McCutcheon, W.A. The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland, pp 104-105 (Belfast: HMSO, 1980).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

The high quality of the stonework (virtually all ashlar) of this early nineteenth century railway bridge reflects the solidity and ‘no expense spared’ image which the Ulster Railway Company wished to project to the public. This is also reflected in the use of an impressive brick arch rather than a more utilitarian timber or lattice girder span. The bridge is of historical interest in being one of the earliest rail-over-river bridges in Ulster. It has group value with other railway bridges along the same line.