Railway Bridge,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Site, on the Old Ballygowan Road roughly one mile SW of Comber town centre, of a former road bridge (over a former railway line), now demolished.

The bridge was described in November 1973 as, ‘Skew bridge carrying roadway over former railway, in dark stone rubble with dressed voussoirs, segmental arch and battered abutments. Dressed coping to parapets. Condition fair but overgrown, undertrack used as rubbish tip…’.

All trace of the railway cutting has now disappeared and the road itself has been straightened.

Historical information

The bridge once on this site was probably constructed 1856-7 to carry the new Belfast & Co. Down railway line between Comber and Downpatrick (officially opened in March 1859). In order to allow for this, this section of the road had to be realigned slightly. The line was abandoned in 1950, and the bridge demolished some time after 1973. The road itself has been straightened in recent years, once again assuming the route it followed prior to the arrival of the railway.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.

Secondary sources
1 W.A. McCutcheon ‘The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’ (HMSO 1980), pp.157, 175.
2 Desmond Coakham ‘Belfast & County Down Railway’ (Leicester 1998), pp.26-31.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Site of a rubble-built bridge of c.1856-7 which once carried the Old Ballygowan Road over the Belfast & Co. Down railway line south of Comber. The bridge was completely demolished some time after c.1973 and the road straightened.