Bridge over railway

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An iron girder bridge carrying a minor road over a railway line. Abutments of basalt rubble carried up as snecked rubble piers to each end of the parapets. Pier copings of rock faced sandstone with tooled edges and humped tops. Splayed retaining walls to each side of abutments, with raking sandstone copings. Flat iron girder bridge supported on four circular cast iron posts. Iron plate panels to parapets with two wrought iron brackets to the outer face of each parapet, fixed to the girder. Inclined approaches to bridge, with flat carriageway.

SETTING: The bridge stands in a rural area with dense vegetation along the embankments and trees to each side of the road. Abandoned iron steps lead down to the location of the original halt, now replaced by a modern house.

Historical information

Built to carry a minor road over the Dublin and Antrim Junction Railway, a branch line of the Great Northern Railway; date of construction uncertain, but a bridge appears on the OS map of 1857. The ironwork girder could be a later replacement for an original masonry arch.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 55.
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 1857).
2. IHR 7204.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an example of Victorian bridge engineering in stone and iron, but of no special or unusual interest.