Newmill Bridge, Clarehill Road, Moira, Craigavon, Co Armagh

Newmill Bridge is a triple-span masonry arch bridge carrying a secondary road between Moira and Dromore over the River Lagan. It displays the style and proportions characteristic of an 18th-century bridge and is constructed mostly of rounded field stones with three arches of irregular segmental profile.

The bridge is of random rubble construction. The stonework comprises mostly rounded field stones, though part of the left-bank arch spandrel and parapet are of quarried rubble, indicating a later rebuild. The arches are of irregular segmental profile with the middle arch being the widest. All three arches have split rubble masonry voussoirs and their soffits are rendered with cement, through which random rubble is visible in places. Triangular mass concrete cutwaters rise to just above arch spring level on both faces and are capped with concrete rising to crown level. The parapets are coped with roughly squared granite blocks which contrast with the black stonework of the rest of the bridge. Both faces are identical except for the addition of a lagged water pipe on the downstream (north-east) face, carried across just above crown level. The carriageway comprises two lanes and has a slight hump. The downstream left-bank wall of the approach road from Moira is buttressed with random rubble. The bridge may have been repointed with cement in 1983, this being the date inscribed on the upstream face of the left-bank arch.

A bridge is shown here on Oliver Sloane's 1739 map of County Down and on Taylor and Skinner's 1777 road map. The bridge is cited on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as 'New Mill Bridge'. The 1837 Ordnance Survey Memoir for Moira Parish describes it thus: "New Mill bridge over the River Lagan is 55 feet long and 23 feet 6 inches broad. It is built of whinstone and freestone and consists of three semi-circular arches." The construction date of the present bridge is uncertain. The 1834 Ordnance Survey map shows a mill race just north of the bridge, but there is no actual mill on this or subsequent maps. This suggests that the mill was long gone and that the 'New' refers to the bridge rather than the mill. However, such a designation could have persisted for many decades after the bridge was erected. An early 18th-century date would not be out of keeping with the bridge's relatively plain construction and crudeness of its arch profiles, but it may possibly have been rebuilt later in that century.

Although the bridge's heritage merit has been diminished by the later concrete cutwaters and water pipe, it nevertheless retains its historical fabric more or less intact and is a good example of its time. It is located in a landscape setting approximately 1 mile east of Moira village and is of local historical and architectural interest.