ALTADREEN BRIDGE, BALLYPATRICK TL, Glenshesk, Ballymoney, CO.ANTRIM

Altadreen Bridge is a slightly skew masonry road bridge built in 1834 over a stream on the Cushendall to Ballycastle section of the A2 road in Ballypatrick Forest. Despite its relatively modest size, the bridge displays high quality construction evident in its tapered abutments and dressed sandstone embellishments.

The bridge is constructed of random rubble blackstone brought to courses. Its abutments are detailed with margined rock-faced sandstone quoins. The semicircular arch, set slightly skew to the face of the bridge, is embellished with rock-faced, vee-jointed sandstone voussoirs. Both upstream and downstream faces feature shallow tapered buttresses detailed to match the abutments; those on the upstream face have a curved taper. A sandstone string course of D profile runs across the bridge at the base of the parapet, just above the crown of the arch. The bed of the stream is pitched with stones beneath the arch, and the downstream right bank is retained with rubble stonework.

The upstream parapet is coped with rock-faced, margined sandstone blocks. The downstream (north-east) parapet coping has been replaced with concrete, and the south-east end of this parapet has also been rebuilt. Embedded in the road face of the downstream parapet is an original sandstone plaque inscribed "Avltadreen / 1834" with a crow's foot benchmark just to its left. Short rubble masonry approach walls continue beyond the upstream parapets, their original copings replaced with concrete.

The bridge was constructed as part of the Antrim Coast Road scheme, the largest civil engineering project in Ireland at the time. This road, constructed between 1832 and 1842 by Scottish engineer William Bald for the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, improved social and economic networking throughout the region. The section containing this bridge was completed in autumn 1835. An 1832 Ordnance Survey map shows a dotted line marking "new road in progress 1833" on this route, and the bridge is explicitly captioned on all editions of the Ordnance Survey maps from 1857 onwards.

The bridge has group value with neighbouring structures along this section of the A2: Corratavey Bridge, Altheela Bridge, and Bushburn Bridge. Except for the replaced downstream parapet coping, the bridge's original fabric remains largely unaltered.