Bridges

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The Moneyglass Estate garden features consist of two adjoining walled gardens and three bridges, built before 1832 and remodelled c.1850. The portico (HB20/01/021A) to the centre of the estate stands at the end of a two-branched avenue leading from the southeast. The first bridge is located to the east avenue branch, the second bridge is to the west avenue branch, and third is near the estate farmyard (HB20/01/21C).

Bridge 1:
Single-span skewed stone road-over-stream bridge, built c.1850, aligned north-south.
The west elevation has random-coursed basalt spandrels and parapets with square piers to corners and centre, blocked basalt voussoirs to arches and soldier-coursed rubble caps to piers (parapet coping missing). The soffit is of rubble.
The east elevation was rebuilt in concrete (following widening of carriageway. Grass embankments to north and south.

Bridge 2:
Single-span skewed stone road-over-stream bridge, built c.1850, aligned north-south.
Walling is squared and snecked basalt to spandrels and parapet. Dressed voussoirs to arches with rubble to soffit. Parapet corner square piers have no caps (northeast pier is missing).
East elevation arch has collapsed and lacks parapet.
West elevation has soldier-coursed rubble parapet coping.
Both north and south embankments are grassy.

Bridge 3:
Single-span stone road-over-stream bridge, built c.1850, aligned east-west.
Walling is squared and snecked basalt to spandrels and parapet. Dressed voussoirs to round arch with rubble to soffit.
South elevation has soldier-coursed parapet coping.
North elevation abuts farmyard structures.
Both east and west embankments are grassy.

Historical information

The two walled gardens and three bridges are located to the extensive grounds of Moneyglass House estate. The two vast walled gardens were originally formally arranged, and consist of an area c.5 acres. Reputedly, the larger garden was an orchard and the smaller was for vegetables. The brick ruined section to the west of the second walled garden was reputedly an old laundry house.

Another estate structure located to the east, the mausoleum to the Jones family, was demolished without a trace in the mid twentieth century after being ransacked in the early twentieth century during the same period that the country house was destroyed. The mausoleum was raided for the rich lead-lined coffins; human remains were later transferred to Duneane Presbyterian Church (HB20/01/19).

The 1833 OS map shows a house, a walled garden, a small building on the present farmyard site, and a stable block with an extended east block (located to the northeast). By the time of the 1857 OS, house, farmyard complex, and stable court had been enlarged and a stream dammed to create the ornamental lake. Added to the east block of the stable court visible in the 1833 OS was the present quadrangle of four blocks. Sir Charles Lanyon is recorded to have rebuilt the estate gate lodges in the mid 1850s and is likely to have worked on the house and estate buildings.

Lendrick’s Map, dated 1782, reports Moneyglass to be the seat of Thomas M. Jones Esq. According to the OS Memoirs, the house was built in 1787 by Thomas Morres Jones Esq., replacing an earlier house in which an earlier ancestor, Mr. William Morres Jones, dwelt as the first recorded occupant of Moneyglass. The 1836 Townland Valuation records the estate as being owned by a Major Kennedy.

References --Primary:
1. PRONI OS/6/1/94/1, OS Map, 1st edition, Co Antrim, sheet no. 94 (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/94/2, OS Map, 2nd edition, Co Antrim, sheet no. 94 (1857).
3. Lendrick’s Map (1782)
4. PRONI VAL/1A/1/42, Townland Valuation Map, Co. Antrim, no. 42, 1836 VAL1 1836
5. OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of Co Antrim VI 1830, 1833, 1835-38 (South west Antrim) Vol 19

--Secondary:
1. Dean, J. A. K. The Gatelodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer, 1994

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Although the estate bridges have been partially rebuilt, they reatin . The vast size of the walled gardens makes them quite scarce. The collection of the group of estate structure is still quite complete in spite of the fact that the country house was lost nearly a century before.