Crumlin Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A five-arched masonry skew bridge carrying the main road over the Crumlin River. Random rubble basalt with roughly shaped voussoirs to segmental arches. On east face piers faced with angled cutwaters; lime mortar to spandrels; parapet projects out very slightly over line of carriageway; flat sandstone copings to parapet; parapet at north end ramps up to boundary wall of adjacent former mill complex.

On west face an extension has been added in the form of angled piers with rubble stone cutwaters, like original cutwaters moved out, with two longitudinal beams carrying a flat concrete slab. The old arches are exposed within the bays of the extension. Modern parapet railings between rectangular stone piers carried up from cutwaters.

Vaults of original bridge roughly cement grouted exposing much of the stonework.

Carriageway flat; original parapet on west side is left isolated as a boundary between vehicular roadway and pedestrian pathway over extension.

SETTING: The bridge stands on the northern edge of the built-up area of the village with many trees and bushes in its immediate surroundings. It is oversailed at an angle by a later railway viaduct of steel girder construction (HB20/15/030).

Historical information

Built c 1780, according to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS map 1832, Co Antrim 59.
2. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 21: Parishes of County Antrim VII, 1832-8 (Belfast, 1993), pp 66 and 67.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
E. Spatial Organisation
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a late eighteenth bridge which retains most of its original features along with a late 20th century extension in a modern style. This has been handled well and along with the steel lattice girder bridge over forms an impressive and unique group.