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

Railway Bridge, Muckamore

This is a single arched masonry bridge carrying the railway over Oldstone Road, built in 1847 to designs by Charles Lanyon, the engineer and architect for the Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company. The contractor was William Dargan. The contract was awarded in October 1845, work began in November 1845, and the line opened in April 1848. This is a good example of an early Victorian railway bridge of distinctive style and proportion, of conventional design and construction but of special interest due to its known authorship and date, as well as its status as a local landmark.

The bridge is constructed of snecked basalt with rusticated granite voussoirs to the segmental arch. The abutments are broken forward to form broad piers with battered faces and granite quoins to the piers and to the main archway. Below the archway is a projecting plain platband at the springing line, which returns back on each side through the archway. Extending to each side beyond the piers are snecked basalt wing walls serving the approaches, terminating in end piers. A moulded sandstone cornice runs across the main bridge and flanking piers, with a plain platband to the wing walls. The parapet comprises balustrading over the main span, with ashlar sandstone at the piers and snecked basalt to the wings; moulded copings run to all portions. The balustrading on the south side has been rebuilt in tinted concrete to the pattern of the original sandstone balustrading. The balustrading on the north side has been partly rebuilt in concrete but retains some original sandstone balusters and coping. Balustrading on each side contains a central recessed rectangular panel; the one on the north side is inscribed with the date 1847. The voussoirs of the archway on each face 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. The vaulting is of brickwork partly rendered with what appears to be later steel plating to the upper part.

The bridge stands in a fairly rural area with the embankments of the railway line thickly overgrown with bushes and mature trees in the immediate vicinity. Immediately to the south is an arched masonry bridge whose parapet extensions abut the railway bridge, forming part of an attractive group with the road bridge over the river. Immediately to the north, at the west end, are the grounds of a 19th century house, whose boundary wall also abuts the railway bridge. The bridge enjoys a pleasant and unspoiled setting. The railway line was replaced and the parapets of the bridge repaired in 2000.