Bridge over railway

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single arched masonry bridge carrying the main road over a railway line, built of rubble basalt with a segmental archway of brickwork. Battered faces to abutments with pier-like projections at extremities and near springing point of arches. Archway set back from abutment piers; constructed of six courses of firebrick; sandstone keystone. Projecting sandstone string course at carriageway level and sandstone copings to parapets. Vaulting of brickwork, skewed. Carriageway hump-backed. Copings over parapets are rough faced with chiselled edges; copings over abutment piers have caps raised at angles with flat top.

SETTING: The bridge stands within the built-up area of the village at the east end of the main street, with grassy banks to each side.

Historical information

Built to carry the main street of Crumlin over the Dublin and Antrim Junction Railway, a branch line of the Great Northern Railway.

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. IHR 7204.

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 interest.