BRIDGE, Bridge Street, CUSHENDALL, CO.ANTRIM

A mid-19th century twin-arched masonry road bridge over the River Dall on the south-east approach to Cushendall village from Waterfoot. The bridge is of particular quality, evident in its construction and embellishment with dressed sandstone. That it represents a twin-arched replacement of a previous triple-arched bridge is testimony to advances in bridge construction and engineering by this period.

The bridge is executed in squared and randomly-sized sandstone blocks, some laid to courses and others brought to courses. The pier has an angled cutwater at both ends, rising to arch spring level and coped with dressed stone. The equi-sized arches are of segmental profile and have finely-dressed sandstone voussoirs with soffits of random rubble. The bridge is embellished with a dressed sandstone string course running across its face and continuing around the out-projecting piers at both ends of the parapets. The parapets are coped with sloping dressed sandstone blocks. The deck carries two lanes of traffic and a footpath along each side. It is lit by modern ornamental lamp posts at its south-east and north-west ends. The bases of the abutments and pier are encased in concrete to minimise undercutting. A drain pipe projects through the downstream face of the bridge on its right bank side.

The bridge is located immediately west of the junction of the main Larne-Ballycastle and Ballyemon roads. At its west end, a road runs south-west into a carpark and a footpath north-east along the left bank beside a row of shops. There is also a shop just beyond its north-east end. The river bank has been revetted in stone and heightened to minimise local flooding.

Historical records show an unnamed bridge on the 1832 Ordnance Survey map, apparently a 1792 rebuild of an earlier structure. The 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoir described it as "a plain, clumsy bridge on the south side of the town over the Dall River. It consists of three arches, two of which are elliptical and one semicircular. It is 90ft long by 21ft wide and is in tolerable repair." The present bridge, with only two arches, is obviously a later rebuild, probably erected by the mid-19th century and shown on the 1857 and subsequent Ordnance Survey maps. Whether it was erected by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland as part of the new Antrim Coast Road (1832–42) or in connection with a new line of road down Ballyemon, which meets the main road almost at the bridge, is uncertain. The bridge's original fabric survives in a largely unaltered state and continues to facilitate social and economic interaction along the Antrim coast.