Con O'Neill Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Narrow hump backed stone bridge over the Connswater river in a small park accessed off Abetta parade, close to the listed Elmgrove primary School (HB26.05.002). The bridge has a shallow arch and is constructed of rough stone voussoirs with very little material above. It is finished with small stone cobbles laid in a tight configuration. The bridge is approached on the North side by a cobbled path, part of a later landscaping scheme and simply leads to the other bank on the South side with no access to the school site beyond.

Historical information

Local tradition suggests that this pedestrian bridge dates from the late 16th / beginning of the 17th century, and was associated with Con O’Neill, the then lord of Clandeboy. The bridge lies on a trackway which lead from the tidal creek at Conn’s Water to the O’Neill stronghold in the Castlereagh Hills.

No such structure appears to be indicated on the Raven maps of the 1620s however, or on the OS map of 1833-34 and 1858, a foot bridge marked for the first time on that of 1901. Its non-appearance on the Raven survey can be put down to the scale of the map itself, but the fact that is not shown on the first two OS maps is somewhat more difficult to account for. It could be explained simply as an oversight on the part of the cartographers, or simply that the bridge was deemed too small a feature to depict. It is nonetheless strange that no reference is made to it at all, especially given the mid 19th century interest in antiquities, and the fact that structures such as castle ruins, sites of old churches etc. were marked on the revised edition in particular.

As far as written sources are concerned, the 1830s OS Memoir for Knockbreda parish makes no mention of the bridge, although this may be excused as the entry for the parish as a whole is relatively brief. Edmund Getty writing in the 1855 volume of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology on the ‘true position of the ford of Belfast’ makes reference to the idea of a fording point along Conn’s Water, but does not refer to a bridge. However, R.M. Young in his 1896 ‘Historical Notices of Old Belfast and its Vicinity’ includes a somewhat fanciful illustration entitled ‘Conswater Bridge 1603’ which seems (on the face of it) to depict the present structure, and there is a c.1900-1910 photo of the bridge in the Green Collection captioned ‘King Conn’s Bridge over Conn’s Water’.

Thus, as the aforementioned maps suggest, there would appear to be no concrete evidence for the existence of the bridge prior to the latter years of the 19th century.

In terms of size and appearance the bridge looks like a late 18th or 19th century garden feature. It closely resembles a foot bridge within the Saintfield House demesne which is probably 18th century. For much of the 1800s its site lay within the grounds of Elm Grove, a substantial residence belonging to the owners of the near by Grove Flax Spinning Mill.

William McCutcheon also felt that it was ‘probably not so old as it is often reputed to be’. It is most likely a (suitably rustic) garden feature of the latter half of the 19th century.

It is currently a key feature in a proposed urban linear park which is designed to follow the course of the Connswater river.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

B. Proportion
F. Structural System
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

This is most likely to be a small and rare example of a nineteenth century stone garden structure. Local tradition, however, states that it is much older and was a bridge used by Con O'Neill and his men to cross the Conns Water river on their way from the sea to his stronghold in the Castlereagh hills. Whatever its origins it is of significant local interest.