Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB24/16/011

Address :
(Site of) Bridge, Magherascouse Road, Ballygowan, Co. Down BT23 5R[?S]

Townland:
Ballygowan

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Survey 2:
Record Only

Date of Listing:

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Demolished

Former Use
Bridge

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
Yes

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
Demolished

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OS Map No:
167/5

IG Ref:
J4352 6407

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Owner Category

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).

Architects

Not Known

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

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.

General Comments

Date of Survey

20 January 1999