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

White Arch

This bridge stands on the line of a two-and-a-half mile long narrow-gauge mineral railway opened by the Glenariff Iron Ore & Harbour Company in 1873. The railway was built to convey ore mined at Cloghcor in the upper reaches of Glenariff to the purpose-built Milltown Pier, from where the ore was loaded onto ships for export to Britain for smelting. The line holds the distinction of being the first 3-foot (narrow) gauge line in Ireland. Mining ceased within three years and the line became defunct. An attempt to revive it in 1880 failed, and it was officially abandoned in 1885. The track and rolling stock were advertised for sale in September 1885 and the track was subsequently lifted.

The bridge is a highly-skewed structure of 1873 which formerly carried the single-track mineral railway over the Antrim Coast Road. Despite its name suggesting an arched structure, it actually had a horizontal span, either of metal or timber. The span is now gone, leaving only the masonry abutments on both sides of the road as evidence of the crossing.

The abutments are constructed 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 south side of the road, has a wing wall at each end aligned parallel with the road. The western wing wall is straight, while the eastern one curves inwards. Both are coped with squared limestone blocks and terminate in square piers.

The seaward abutment, on the north side of the road, is triangular in plan with a hollow centre accessed through a semicircular arch on its north-west face. Its blank north-east 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 the wall on the road's seaward side to counteract wave erosion. The bridge's plan form is unusual in that it has this accessible space behind its seaward abutment. Despite their utilitarian function, the abutments display architectural embellishment, notably in the semicircular arch on the seaward side.

The bridge has group value with the nearby Glenariff Mining Company cottages. A short distance to the east is a terrace of two-storey limestone houses originally belonging to the Glenariff Mining Company. The former locomotive shed survives at the east end of this terrace, now in use as 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 has been largely washed away. However, it survives further east, running parallel with the road and clearly evident up to a modern carpark. Beyond this carpark are the wave-battered remnants of the pier once served by the railway. The partial survival of the former track bed on both sides enhances the bridge's prominent setting along the Coast Road.

The abutments represent a good example of a highly-skewed railway bridge and comprise original, unaltered fabric. The bridge has local historical interest because of its association with the earliest narrow-gauge railway in Ireland, and it is of industrial archaeological interest.