Footbridge over sunken drive, Rosemount House, Greyabbey, Newtownards, Co Down, BT22 2QA

This is a well-proportioned early Victorian footbridge, largely unaltered and forming a picturesque garden feature within the grounds of Rosemount House, near Newtownards. It spans a sunken driveway and provides a viewpoint of nearby Cistercian abbey ruins.

The bridge is a narrow pedestrian structure with a humped back profile, carrying a path over the sunken driveway and connecting the gardens of Rosemount House with the adjacent pastureland to the north. The north-west face features rubble stone walling with a segmental arch constructed of red brickwork, topped by a rubble stone parapet with fieldstone copings. A rectangular block of dressed stone is positioned to the left of the arch, featuring two small square socket holes. The parapet continues along each side to the raking approach paths. The south-east face mirrors the north face, but includes a dressed stone block with square socket holes in each spandrel of the archway. The underside of the bridge is a roughly whitened brick vault springing from rubble stone piers. The path on the bridge is largely cement screeded, with grassed areas at each end. A modern gateway, consisting of plain timber posts with an old flat-iron and railinged gate of no particular interest, sits on the north approach path. The bridge is situated within the grounds of Rosemount House, spanning the sunken driveway, with one approach path in open pasture and the other within a garden setting surrounded by trees, shrubs, and bushes.

The bridge was built for the Montgomery family of Rosemount House to cross the sunken driveway north of the main house, connecting the lawn near the house with the parkland beyond. It is believed to date from between 1840 and 1859, appearing on an Ordnance Survey map of 1858 but not on the 1834 map.