Gilford Bridge, Bridge Street, Gilford, Craigavon, Co Down, BT63

Gilford Bridge is a masonry road bridge spanning the River Bann south of Gilford, carrying the Gilford-Tandragee Road. Built between 1820 and 1839, it is a Grade B1 listed structure of considerable historical and architectural importance, offering clear evidence of its construction sequence and subsequent widening.

The bridge comprises three arched spans over the river itself, with a further 17 smaller semicircular flood arches (each approximately 90 centimetres in span) along its eastern approach road. The structure is constructed of random rubble blackstone, embellished with good quality dressed granite. The granite dresses the abutment and pier quoins, the angled cutwaters (which rise to arch spring level) on both upstream and downstream sides, and the segmental arch voussoirs with raised keystones. Half-attached urn motifs are set into the spandrels just above the cutwaters on both sides. The arch soffits are of random rubble.

The bridge's construction history is complex and well-documented through Ordnance Survey records. Maps from 1714, 1743 and 1777 indicate a road crossing at this location. The October 1834 Ordnance Survey Memoir notes the bridge had 22 small arches, but the February 1837 revision describes only three semicircular arches spanning the river, 74 feet long and 26 feet broad including parapet walls, built of whinstone with granite piers and coping. This evidence indicates that the original structure consisted of five arches over the river and 17 flood arches on the eastern approach—22 arches in total. Between 1834 and 1837, these five river arches were replaced by three much wider segmental spans. Subsequently, the entire structure was widened on both upstream and downstream sides to its present form. Clear breaks visible in the arch soffits on both sides document this two-phase widening, which occurred within just over two years. The reasons for not constructing the three arches in their widened form from the outset remain unexplained.

The parapet is coped with granite blocks. The carriageway carries two traffic lanes and a footpath on its downstream (north) side. The granite copings along the approach walls have been reused in later rebuilding work. At the southeast end, the bridge has been widened in the relatively recent past, with the repositioned parapet carried on a diagonally-set steel beam.

The 17 flood arches on the south face of the southeast approach wall are now infilled with random rubble. At the eastern end of this approach wall stands a pair of wrought-iron gates hung from square piers, beyond which the road is carried over a shallow segmental arch spanning a mill race. This arch features dressed quoins and voussoirs with a gunited soffit. The northeast approach wall, slightly advanced from the bridge face, has been rebuilt in random rubble, and the mill race has been culverted on this side, leaving no visible trace of original arches.

The bridge is set south of Gilford village, spanning the River Bann with its approach road and mill race to the east. A car park is adjacent to the north; a two-storey public house stands to the east. The landscape to the south comprises rough grassland flood plain with tree-lined riverbanks.

The bridge is of particular interest as evidence of early 18th-century engineering practice (possibly earlier) and clear documentation of mid-19th-century structural alteration. The relative lack of embellishment is typical of 18th and early 19th-century bridge design. The structure is also a scarce example where widening is so clearly evident in the surviving stonework, and it possesses industrial archaeological interest in relation to the mill race infrastructure.