Newtownstewart Old Bridge, Douglas Road, Newtownstewart, Co. Tyrone, BT78 4NE

Newtownstewart Old Bridge is a six-span stone bridge built in 1727, carrying the Douglas Road over the River Strule. It is a rare example of early eighteenth-century bridge construction and represents an important phase in the town's history.

The bridge is built of random rubble basalt with undressed stone spandrels, parapets, and cutwaters. It features six depressed stilted round arches with rubble voussoirs sprung from V-shaped rubble cutwaters. The arches on the west side have cement-rendered soffits. The parapets are finished with soldier-coursed rubble coping, which extends outward to form similarly detailed dwarf boundary walls flanking the roads. The carriageway is surfaced in tarmac.

Contemporary sources date the bridge to 1727. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs, which describe it as "one of the principal" bridges in the area, provide contemporary measurements: the bridge was 300 feet long, 13 feet wide, and 20 feet above the water level, spanning a river 270 feet in breadth. The memoirs record that it was built of unhewn stone, was in poor condition at the time of writing, and was maintained at county expense.

The bridge's construction is linked to the rebuilding of Newtownstewart itself. The town was founded in the seventeenth century by William Stewart on land granted by Charles I. It was destroyed in 1689 when James II, retreating from the Siege of Derry, razed the entire town and bridge. The town was rebuilt by the Stewarts in 1722, and the present bridge followed five years later. The bridge stands near Newtownstewart Castle, dated to circa 1619, at an important junction of three rivers.

The bridge is located northeast of Newtownstewart town centre, south of the reinforced concrete Abercorn Bridge (1931–1932). Its setting includes mature woodlands to the northeast, mature trees and the Pigeon Hill Motte to the southeast, a modern petrol station to the southwest, and a modernised two-storey house with modern outbuilding to the northwest, the latter built into the boundary wall extending from the northwest parapet wall.