Cross Hill Bridge, Poplar Road, Ballydonaghy/Crosshill, Crumlin, Co Antrim

This is a well-proportioned example of an early 19th-century bridge, built of robust construction, which has undergone unsympathetic alterations. The bridge is a four-arched masonry structure carrying a road running north-south over the Crumlin River. It is constructed from random rubble basalt, with roughly shaped basalt voussoirs forming segmental arches; the two central arches are wider than the arches at each end. The piers are faced with triangular cutwaters on each side, backed by square buttresses on the west side. The vaults are of rubble, roughly cemented over the original lime mortar. The parapets project slightly over the line of the carriageway on their outer faces, and have concrete copings that are segmental in section. The parapets rise slightly from end to end, creating a subtly hump-backed profile to the outer faces of the bridge, although the carriageway itself is virtually flat. On the east side, the parapets continue as field walls, featuring inclined stone buttresses – two on the north side of the river, and four on the south side, with one buttress on the south end of the west face. Concrete repair work has been carried out on the abutment pier at the north end of the west face. The bridge is situated in a rural area surrounded by agricultural land, with trees and bushes nearby, and a view towards the site of a ruined medieval church to the south-west. The precise date of construction is unknown, but it appears on an Ordnance Survey map of 1832-3. References suggest a construction date of approximately 240 years prior to a photograph published in the Belfast Telegraph on 8 August 1930. The bridge’s date of construction is believed to be between 1820 and 1839. It is of industrial archaeological interest.