Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB20/10/007

Address :
Bridge over railway at east end of Fountain Street Antrim Co Antrim

Townland:
Bleerick

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Survey 2:
Record Only

Date of Listing:

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Bridge

Former Use
Bridge

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
Yes

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
96/14 SW

IG Ref:
J1557 8650

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Owner Category

Exterior Description And Setting

A single arched tunnel-like masonry bridge, skewed at one end, carrying the main road over a railway line, built of snecked basalt rubble with a segmental archway of rusticated sandstone voussoirs, a rusticated sandstone stringcourse projecting at carriageway level, and rusticated sandstone quoins to abutments. Vault of coursed sandstone, skewed at the south end. Abutments break forward to each side of the archway, with battered faces, with approach walls on north side angled back or curved back. Parapets of snecked basalt rubble, with rusticated sandstone copings except for a large granite coping at the western extremity on the north side; all copings feathered. At the western extremity on the south side the parapet is spliced to an adjacent higher basalt rubble retaining wall which has basalt rock copings. SETTING: The bridge stands at the eastern extremity of the main street which runs through the centre of the town; grassy sloping banks; railway line currently removed for repair or replacement.

Architects

Lanyon, Charles

Historical Information

Built c 1847 to carry the main road over the railway line of the Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company to the designs of the company's engineer and architect, Charles Lanyon; contractor, William Dargan. The contract for the line was advertised in September 1845; awarded in October 1845; work started in November 1845; line opened in April 1848. Precise date of this bridge not known but it was presumably built around the same time as the one on the same line at nearby Muckamore (HB20/13/008) which bears the date 1847. References – Primary Sources 1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50. Secondary Sources 1. J.R.L. Currie, The Northern Counties Railway, Vol I (Newton Abbot, 1973), pp 27-45. 2. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1980), pp 120 and 121. 3. IHR 1339: 184.

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

Not listed

Historic Interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an example of early Victorian railway bridge engineering, of masonry construction, designed by an important Irish engineer and architect, Charles Lanyon.

General Comments

Date of Survey

20 February 2000