Railway Bridge, carrying railway over, Oldstone Road, Muckamore, Antrim, Co Antrim

A single arched masonry bridge carrying the railway over the main road, built of snecked basalt with rusticated granite voussoirs to the segmental arch. Abutments are broken forward to form broad piers with battered faces: granite quoins to piers and to main archway below a projecting plain platband at the springing line, which returns back on each side through the archway. Extending to each side beyond piers are snecked basalt wing walls, to the approaches, terminating in end piers. Moulded sandstone cornice to the main bridge and flanking piers, with plain platband to wing walls. The parapet comprises balustrading over the main span, with ashlar sandstone at the piers, and snecked basalt to the wings; moulded copings to all portions. Balustrading on the south side is new, rebuilt in tinted concrete to pattern of original sandstone balustrading; balustrading on the north side has been partly rebuilt in concrete but retains some of the original sandstone balusters and coping. Balustrading on each side contains a central recessed rectangular panel, the one on the north side inscribed with the date 1847. The voussoirs of the archway on each face of the bridge have been later painted alternately in black and yellow while the central portion of the archways appears to have been faced with steel plate, painted as voussoirs. Vaulting is of brickwork partly rendered with what appears to be later steel plating to the upper part. SETTING: The bridge stands in a fairly rural area with the embankments of the railway line thickly overgrown with bushes and with mature trees in the immediate vicinity. Immediately to the south is an arched masonry bridge whose parapet extensions abut the railway bridge. Immediately to the north, at the west end, are the grounds of a 19th century house, whose boundary wall also abuts the railway bridge. Currently (April 2000) the carriageway of the bridge is being re-laid with track.