Road Bridge, Bridge Road, Helen's Bay, Bangor, Co Down

Road Bridge, Helen's Bay

A single-arch masonry bridge built around 1853 to designs by Benjamin Ferrey, carrying Bridge Road over Clandeboye Avenue. Despite its modest scale, the bridge is a good and rare example of its type, distinguished by its careful execution, high-quality sandstone detailing, and technically meritorious ribbed ashlar stonework.

The structure comprises abutments of quarried rubble blackstone brought to courses, supporting a two-centred arch with ornate moulded sandstone voussoirs. The arch soffit is of ribbed ashlar sandstone. Around the extrados is a course of square sandstone blocks. The crown of both arch faces bears a square sandstone plaque dated 1853 in bas relief.

The spandrels are of rubble blackstone with a narrow moulded sandstone string course above. The parapets follow the same treatment and are coped with dressed sandstone blocks slanting down towards the road face. They terminate in canted terminal piers over geometric corbels rising from arch spring level, both rendered in ashlar sandstone. A parapet string course marks the base of each terminal pier. The wing walls are of random rubble blackstone.

The bridge carries two lanes of traffic and a footpath. The structure was designed by the prominent architect Benjamin Ferrey and shares design features with the nearby railway bridge built some ten years later by the same architect, also located at Helen's Bay. It has group value with the adjoining coach yard and related railway structures in the vicinity, and is associated with the 1st Marquis and the Clandeboye estate. The bridge greatly enhances Clandeboye Avenue, which was designed as an avenue between Helen's Bay and Clandeboye House by the landscape architect James Fraser in the early 1850s. The structure is of industrial archaeological interest and is located in the Helen's Bay Area of Village Character.