Thornyford Bridge, Blackskull Road, Dromore, Co Down, BT27

Thornyford Bridge is an 18th-century masonry arch road bridge, likely constructed between 1760 and 1779, spanning the River Lagan on Blackskull Road, near Dromore. It is a good example of 18th-century bridge design, built with random rubble blackstone throughout. The bridge comprises four arches of approximately equal size, each with a semicircular profile, featuring undressed voussoirs and gunited soffits. Angled, shallow cutwaters are positioned at either end of the piers, rising to arch crown level and tapering off into the parapets. The parapets are coped with roughly squared stone blocks and splay outwards slightly at both ends. The carriageway curves gently and contains a buried water pipe. Two telegraph poles are located across the upstream face of the bridge, intended to prevent cattle from wading downstream. The bridge is set within a rural landscape of farmland, with heavily wooded riverbanks. A drinking place for cattle is present on the south bank, to the east side of the bridge. A road crossing at this location is depicted on Taylor & Skinner’s 1777 map of Ireland, and the bridge is consistently named Thornyford Bridge on Ordnance Survey maps from 1834 onwards. The bridge’s plain appearance supports its 18th-century dating and suggests it may be the structure shown on the earlier map. Its notable characteristics include its style, proportion, lack of ornamentation, plan form, structural system, and setting, and it also holds local historical and industrial archaeological interest.