Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Rubble-constructed single span, humped back road bridge of c.1859-60, built to carry the Cannyreagh Road over the (now removed) Newtownards-Donaghadee stretch of the Belfast & Co Down Railway. The structure is situated at a bend in the road, roughly half a mile W of Donaghadee.

The bridge is largely in rock-faced fieldstone rubble with a single elliptical arch. The arch has rock-faced, v-jointed sandstone as voussoirs and quoins, and the intrados is brick lined. To each side of the arch, on the W face of the bridge, are splayed triangular buttresses. There is a string course at arch springing level and another just above the arch, both in sandstone. The latter course is only visible from the W face only, because the former railway cutting to the E has been largely filled in, obscuring much of this side of the bridge itself. The parapets have sandstone coping.

Historical information

This bridge was constructed some time between October 1859 and June 1861, as part of the Belfast & Co Down Railway’s new line between Newtownards and Donaghadee. It was probably designed by the BCDR’s chief engineer, Sir John MacNeill and built by his principal contractor, Patrick Moore. The line closed in 1950 and since that time much of the cutting to the immediate east side of the bridge has been filled in.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/3/2/2 OS map, Co Down sh 2, 1858-60

Secondary sources
1 W.A.McCutcheon ‘The industrial archaeology of Northern Ireland’ (Belfast HMSO 1980), pp.142-43
2 Desmond Coakham ‘Belfast & County Down Railway’ (Midland Publishing Ltd, 1998)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Rubble-constructed, single span, humped back road bridge of c.1859-60, built to carry the Cannyreagh Road over the (now removed) Newtownards-Donaghadee stretch of the Belfast & Co Down Railway. The former railway cutting to the immediate east has been largely filled in, obscuring much of this side of the bridge itself.