Shaw's Bridge, Milltown Road, Belfast, BT8

Shaw's Bridge is a five-arch masonry bridge spanning the River Lagan on the county boundary between Antrim and Down. Built in 1709, it originally carried the Milltown Road but now serves pedestrians only, having been superseded by a modern single-span reinforced-concrete road bridge downstream in 1976. It was the first bridge across the Lagan in the Greater Belfast area and remains the earliest surviving example of all road bridges spanning the river in this region. The bridge is a well-known local landmark within the Lagan Valley Regional Park.

The bridge is constructed entirely of random rubble stonework, typical of masonry bridges built before the mid-19th century. Angled cutwaters project from both the upstream and downstream faces of the piers, rising to arch spring level. A stone buttress appears on the downstream face of the left-bank (west) abutment. All five arches display segmental profiles with split stone voussoirs. The three middle arches are wider than the end ones, though all arches share the same height. The eastern arch spans a public footpath running upstream towards the Minnowburn and remains dry. The parapets have been partly reconstructed in matching rubble stonework and are coped with chamfered sandstone blocks, some of which have also been replaced. The inside face of the northern (downstream) parapet retains vestiges of a cast-iron parliamentary boundary post, which also marked the county boundary. A benchmark is incised into the stonework a short distance east on the opposite face. Two concrete bollards now block vehicular access at the eastern end.

The bridge formerly served the Lagan Navigation between Belfast and Lisburn, which opened in 1763. Stone towpath ramps descended from both the upstream (west) and downstream (east) ends to a towpath used for towing barges. The eastern ramp was entirely removed when the new road bridge was constructed in the 1970s, and a zig-zag footpath was subsequently built downstream to provide access. Vestiges of the western ramp survive but are overgrown, with access from above now blocked by a rubble stone wall and access from below hindered by a recently-built boat house belonging to the Belfast Activity Centre. A public car park lies just beyond the western end.

The bridge's history extends further back than its 1709 construction date. A timber bridge reportedly stood at this location around 1650, built by Captain Shaw of Cromwell's Army and recorded as "Shawe's Bridge" on William Petty's baronial map of Belfast dating to circa 1654. In 1691, Shaw's timber bridge was replaced with a masonry structure by Colonel Thomas Burgh, an Irish military engineer who later became Surveyor-General in 1700. This bridge was destroyed by floods and replaced with the present structure in 1709. Evidence suggests the original Burgh bridge had six arches; the present bridge's five arches indicate partial reconstruction, possibly undertaken during repairs in 1778. Tree-ring dating of timber piles discovered during the 1970s construction work suggested a bridge timber from 1617, though whether these were bridge remains remains uncertain. This earlier structure may have been destroyed during the 1641 rebellion and subsequently rebuilt by Shaw. The bridge appears on Taylor and Skinner's 1777 map of Irish roads and is captioned as Shaw's Bridge on Lendrick's 1780 map and all Ordnance Survey maps from the 1830s onwards. It is also mentioned in the 1833 Ordnance Survey Memoir for Drumbo Parish, though without details. When used by the Lagan Navigation, horses towing barges crossed between the County Down and County Antrim sides of the river via the bridge.