ARDCLINIS BRIDGE, ARDCLINIS TL, Glenariff, Ballymena, CO.ANTRIM

Ardclinis Bridge

This is a single-arch masonry road bridge spanning the Ardclinis Burn on the Antrim Coast Road between Garron Point and Glenariff, built in the 1830s. Constructed by the Scottish engineer William Bald as part of a major improvement scheme to the Antrim Coast Road carried out between 1832 and 1842, it represents a significant advance in engineering quality compared to the earlier 18th-century bridge whose remains lie downstream. The project was funded by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland and was at the time the largest civil engineering undertaking ever attempted in Ireland.

The bridge is built of randomly-sized squared basalt rubble brought to courses, with low abutments that spring directly from the rock. Its shallow segmental arch is embellished with dressed sandstone voussoirs, and the soffit is of squared basalt blocks. A dressed sandstone string course runs across both faces just above the arch crown. The parapets terminate in out-projecting piers around which the string courses continue. The parapets were originally coped with sloping sandstone flags, though these have largely been replaced with concrete slabs on the upstream side. Minor repairs in shuttered mass concrete have been made to the crown of the arch soffit, and a satellite dish has been affixed to the upstream face at the eastern end.

The quality of construction is markedly superior to its 18th-century predecessor, particularly evident in the dressed basalt work and contrasting sandstone embellishment. The shallowness of the arch enabled a level deck rather than the humped profile of the earlier bridge. All original fabric survives in a largely unaltered state.

An 1832 Ordnance Survey map captions a "new road in progress 1833" in this vicinity and shows the original line of the earlier road and bridge to the north. The 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoir notes that the road had been partly opened within Ardclinis Parish by that date, and it is likely the bridge had been built by then. It is formally captioned "Ardclinis Bridge" on the 1857 Ordnance Survey map and subsequent editions. The bridge would have been of considerable benefit to the local community in facilitating their social and economic interaction.

Immediately southeast of the bridge, a laneway leads up to a modern farmhouse. To the southwest is a front garden to a modern bungalow. A short distance downstream to the north are the remains of the earlier hump-backed rubble basalt road bridge, whose two semicircular arches have partly collapsed, along with its parapets and upstream cutwater.