Bridge over railway at Glendaragh

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single arched masonry bridge carrying a private lane over a railway line, built of basalt rubble, with a segmental archway of brickwork. Archway constructed of four courses of brick headers, in same plane as spandrels. Vaulting of brickwork. Parapet copings of large sandstone blocks, roughly shaped, with pecked faces. Carriageway hump-backed.

SETTING: The bridge stands in a very rural location, with dense growth of trees bordering the embankments.

Historical information

Built to carry the private driveway from Glendaragh to the main Crumlin to Antrim road, over the Dublin and Antrim Junction Railway, a branch line of the Great Northern Railway, and necessitated by the railway cutting through between the house and the road.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 59.

Secondary Sources
1. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1980), p 110 (but states that the branch line from Knockmore Junction to Antrim was constructed between 1864 and 1871 which is after it appears on the OS map of 1858).
2. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster (Belfast, 1994), p 15.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an example of early Victorian bridge engineering in stone and brick, of unspoiled appearance, but is otherwise not of any special or unusual architectural interest.