Road over rail bridge, off Bushfield Road, Moira, Craigavon, Co Armagh, BT67

Road over Rail Bridge, off Bushfield Road, Moira

This single-arch brick and stone bridge carries a single-lane minor road over the double-track Lisburn-Lurgan section of the Belfast-Dublin railway, just north of the Lisburn-Moira road. The line runs along a deep cutting at this point. The bridge was built during the expansion of the Ulster Railway and dates from the period 1840-1859.

The abutments are constructed of squared random rubble blackstone brought to courses with stepped vee-jointed ashlar sandstone quoins. A chamfered ashlar sandstone string course runs around the quoins and through the arch at spring level. The arch itself is of semi-elliptical profile, built with vee-jointed ashlar sandstone voussoirs, while the soffit is of brick. The spandrels are of random roughly-faced blackstone blocks. Tapered advanced buttresses flank each side, detailed as the spandrels with undifferentiated quoins, extending up to the tops of the parapets and crowned with shallow pyramidal sandstone caps, though both caps are missing at the north end. The parapets are of random rubble blackstone with finely dressed sandstone copings and out-projecting terminal piers, with a chamfered ashlar sandstone string course running along the base of each parapet and around the buttress extensions and terminal piers. A metal plaque on the north-west abutment identifies this as bridge number 273.

Despite its utilitarian function, the bridge exhibits architectural quality through its use of contrasting materials—blackstone, sandstone and brick—and varied finishes of random rubble, squared work and ashlar, embellished with arch and parapet string courses and vee-jointed voussoirs.

The Belfast-Lisburn section of the Belfast-Dublin railway was opened by the Ulster Railway Company in August 1839 and extended to Lurgan by November 1841. The line was constructed by William Dargan under the direction of the company's Resident Engineer, John Godwin. It was initially laid as a single track at 6 feet 2 inches gauge. Following the standardisation of Ireland's railways in 1846, the line was relaid to 5 feet 3 inches gauge and doubled; this work was completed by late 1847. The bridge was designed to anticipate such doubling, requiring no structural alterations when the work was undertaken. The bridge appears on the 1858 Ordnance Survey six-inch map and subsequent editions. In 1876 the Ulster Railway Company became part of the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland). The Ulster Transport Authority assumed operations in 1958, followed by the Northern Ireland Railway Company in 1968. Translink now operates the line, while the maintenance of road-over-railway bridges such as this falls to DRD Roads Service.