Historic Buildings Record · Northern Ireland
(Site of) Bridge,
Ballygowan, Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland
The record
- Designation
- Record only (not listed)
- Grade
- Record Only
- Type
- Demolished
- Date of construction
- 1840 - 1859
- Address
- (Site of) Bridge,, Magherascouse Road,, Ballygowan,, Co. Down, BT23 5R[?S]
- Townland
- Ballygowan
- Council
- Ards and North Down
- Country
- Northern Ireland
- Coordinates
- 54.50472, -5.78515
- Date of survey
- 20 January 1999
- HB reference
- HB24/16/011
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 3 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1794 "Sheet 55. (Cary's England, Wales, and Scotland)." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
The Department's description
Exterior description and setting
Site, at the SE end of the Magherascouse Road (to the NE of the centre of the village of Ballygowan) of a former bridge carrying the road over a, now filled in, railway cutting.
The original survey (7th Feb. 1974) described the bridge as ‘having an elliptical arch [and] in darkstone [basalt] rubble with sandstone coping to parapets, sandstone voussoirs with margin joints, cill course to parapet, and spring course. Brick intrados. Condition fair but overgrown. About 25ft. over parapets’.
Since then the railway cutting has been almost entirely filled and new houses have been built/are in the process of being built around the site. To the N side nothing of the bridge remains, but to the S side a slight hollow denotes the cutting and there is a tall rubble wall to the roadside with a sandstone course half way down, possibly constructed from material taken from the former bridge (?or actually part of the bridge left intact).
Historical information
The bridge once on this site (and once over a railway cutting) was built in 1856-7 as part of the new BCDR line between Comber and Downpatrick (which was officially opened in March 1859). It is shown on the OS map of 1858. The line closed in 1950 and railway cutting filled in some time between 1974 and 1999. The bridge appears to have been largely demolished [? or buried].
Primary sources
1 PRONI OS map 1st rev. 1858-60 Down 16.
2 EHS HB24/16/11 1st survey notes and slide.
3 EHS OS map 167-9 (1:2500) 1973.
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), p.41.
Criteria for listing: architectural interest
Not listed
Criteria for listing: historic interest
Not listed
Evaluation
Site of former bridge carrying the Magherascouse Road over the BCDR railway. The railway cutting has been largely filled in and the bridge has either been buried or (more likely), demolished.
Nearby in the register
- Former orphanage,Hallunder 1 mi
- Ardmore,Houseunder 1 mi
- 4-18 The Brae,House - Terraceunder 1 mi
- Ballygowan Presbyterian Church,Churchunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.