White Arch, opposite 172 Garron Road, Glenariff, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44

A highly-skewed bridge of 1873 which formerly carried the single-track Glenariff Mineral Railway over the Antrim Coast Road. Although its name suggests that it was arched, it actually had a horizontal span (either a metal or timber beam) The span is long gone, leaving only its masonry abutments on both sides of the road. The abutments are of squared limestone rubble, brought to courses and snecked in places. The quoins are of roughly dressed limestone blocks with similarly detailed copings across the top of each abutment. The limestone terminal piers of the span's parapets also survive. The landward abutment (on the S side of the road) has a wing wall at each end, aligned parallel with the road. That at its W end is straight, but the one at E curves inwards. Both are coped with squared limestone blocks and terminate in square piers. The seaward abutment (on the N side of the road) is triangular in plan with a hollow centre which is accessed through a semicircular arch on its NW face. Its blank NE face would originally have been hidden by the embankment. The space inside the abutment is now open to the sky but would have been decked with railway sleepers originally. Part of the floor of this void is now pitched with rubble basalt set in cement - a later addition which continues along the base of wall on the road's seaward side to counteract wave erosion. Setting: This bridge is a short distance E of a terrace of two-storey limestone houses originally belonging to the Glenariff Mining Co (HB05/01/006A and B). The former loco shed survives at the E end of this terrace (now a community hall). A short length of railway embankment survives on the landward side of the bridge. On the seaward side, the embankment would have been level with the top of the abutment, but is long washed away. However, it survives further along to E, running parallel with the road and clearly evident up to a modern carpark. Beyond this car park are the wave-battered remnants of the pier once served by the railway.