Dunmore Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A triple-arched masonry bridge carrying an estate road over the River Main within Shane's Castle Park.

Built of basalt rubble with dressed sandstone voussoirs to the segmental arches, and a projecting stringcourse at carriageway level. Of hump-backed form with side arches of reduced height; top voussoir of central arch on each face is inscribed with the date 1801.
Piers on both faces have triangular cutwaters of dressed stone. Parapets have squared basalt rubble to the inner faces, with later ribbon pointing, with copings of rhyolite, splayed to both sides on top. Parapets formerly surmounted by iron railings, now gone, with sockets now filled with cement. Parapets terminate at each end in square piers, of squared basalt in irregular courses, with splayed caps of rhyolite. Extending beyond bridge to each end are wing walls, pierced on the west by three flood arches, with rough stone voussoirs, which are normally dry. Parapets of wing walls are of basalt rubble with later ribbon pointing, with concrete copings of saddleback form; parapets of wing walls terminate at each end in short square piers of roughly squared basalt rubble with concrete caps. Later buttresses of battered form in roughly squared basalt rubble have been added to both the bridge and the wing walls at the east end, as follows: one to both the north and south wing walls, and two to the north face of the bridge or its abutment. Rough tarmac carriageway with grass verges to both bridge and approaches.

SETTING: The bridge is situated in a very rural area within a country-house demesne, with banks very thickly overgrown and difficult of access except on the south side at the west end. Standing very close by on the north side and clearly visible from it is a taller modern reinforced concrete bridge carrying the M2 motorway.

Historical information

Built by the O'Neill family of Shane's Castle in 1801 to carry an estate road over the River Main. Shown on the OS map of 1829 & 32 as a five-span bridge over the river but the accuracy of recording may be questioned; it is shown on the OS map of 1858 as a triple-span over the river. Original iron railings on parapets removed in the 1990s.

References – Primary Sources
1. Date inscribed on keystone on each face of central arch.
2. OS Map 1829 & 32, Co Antrim 49 (shows a five-span bridge; not named).
3. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 49 (shows a triple-span bridge; named).
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 19: Parishes of County Antrim VI, 1830, 1833, 1835-8 (Belfast, 1993), p 50.

Secondary Sources
1. IHR 7164.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a well proportioned late Georgian bridge of robust construction, which stands in a pleasant setting within a well wooded demesne, of added interest in that it bears the date of construction. It has group value with the other listed buildings on the estate.

General comments

This record was originally numbered as HB20/04/045.