Railway Bridge, Upper Dunmurry Lane, Dunmurry, Lisburn, Co Antrim

Railway Bridge, Upper Dunmurry Lane

This skew arched stone bridge carries the main Belfast-Dublin railway over Upper Dunmurry Lane, immediately south of Dunmurry Station. Dating from 1839, it is one of the earliest railway bridges in Ulster and reflects the high quality of construction with which the Ulster Railway Company wished to project itself to the public.

The bridge is constructed entirely of ashlar Triassic sandstone except for its wing walls. The arch is of three-centred (semi-elliptical) profile and has vee-jointed voussoirs which splay out to double as spandrels. A chamfered string course runs around the quoins and through the arch at spring level. The two-lane road passes beneath the arch with restricted headroom of 8 feet (2.4 metres), marked by metal warning triangles affixed to the arch crowns on both faces. Alternate voussoirs are painted yellow and black as advance warning of this restriction. The soffit is of vee-jointed ashlar sandstone and exhibits extensive longitudinal scraping from traffic impacts. Although the arch is set skew to the railway line, the soffit blocks are jointed parallel with the springing. Tapered buttresses run up each side of the arch. Above the crown is a shallow platband, over which runs a projecting string course continuing around the tops of the buttresses. The parapet is coped with sandstone and terminates in advanced rectangular piers, also capped with sandstone.

Curved wing walls at the north end are of squared random blackstone coped with concrete, replacing the original sandstone copings. The bridge has been extended northwards to accommodate a pedestrian tunnel, first shown on the 1901 Ordnance Survey 25-inch map and therefore added in the late 1890s. This extension is entirely of random sandstone blocks with rusticated facings in paler-coloured stone, clearly of later date. The abutments' blockwork has been brought to courses with margined and rusticated quoins. The narrow arch is of segmental profile with rusticated voussoirs. Each end of the soffit is initially of brick (seemingly original), though its core has been replaced with reinforced-concrete slabs. An ashlar sandstone string course runs under the parapet, which is coped with concrete. The splayed wing walls to the tunnel are of randomly-sized rusticated sandstone blocks, all coped with concrete. At the end of the north-east wing wall is a pair of gate pillars marking the entrance to the footpath up to the station (Dublin direction). At the end of the north-west wing is what appears to be an original gatepost, also marking the entrance to a footpath (Belfast direction), constructed of vee-jointed and margined ashlar with an oversailing rusticated sandstone cap.

The railway between Belfast and Lisburn was opened by the Ulster Railway Company in 1839, making it the first railway in Ulster and the second in Ireland after the Dublin-Kingstown railway opened in 1834. The line was extended to Armagh in 1848 and to Dublin (via Portadown) in 1852. It was constructed by William Dargan, known as the 'father' of Irish railways, under the direction of John Godwin, later Professor of Engineering at Queen's College, Belfast. The consultants to the Ulster Railway Company were William Bald, who built the Antrim Coast Road, and Thomas Jackson Woodhouse, County Antrim's first County Surveyor. Originally the line was a single track at 6 feet 2 inches gauge. Following the change to 5 feet 3 inches gauge throughout Ireland in 1846, it was re-laid as two lines to the new gauge. The depths of all bridges along the line, including this one, had been designed to allow for this doubling of track. In 1876 the Ulster Railway Company amalgamated with various other railway enterprises to form the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland). The Ulster Transport Authority took over operations in 1958, followed by the Northern Ireland Railway Company in 1968. Translink now operates the line.

The bridge is a well-known landmark in this area and a tangible reminder of the railway's illustrious history. Although extended to the north, this extension has been executed using high quality materials sympathetic to the original. The bridge has group value with other railway bridges on the same line.