Iron Lattice Bridge, Hilden Mill, Mill Street, Hilden, Lisburn, Co Antrim

Iron Lattice Bridge, Hilden Mill

This now-disused cast and wrought-metal footbridge formerly served the Barbours' Hilden Mill complex, providing access across the River Lagan for workers living on the County Down side of the river. It was manufactured in 1896 at Brownlie & Murray's Possil Iron Works in Glasgow and represents a good example of a metal lattice girder bridge, though it is now in a derelict condition.

The bridge carries a footpath over the river at the south end of Hilden Mill. The abutment on the left bank is of machined red brick coped with concrete; the right bank abutment is obscured by ivy. The superstructure comprises two principal girders of T-section cast-metal strings joined with riveted plates, between which run diagonal flat wrought-metal bars fixed with rivets. Vertical flat-bar stiffeners are positioned at regular intervals between the strings. I-section steel beams support across the tops of the two bottom strings and carry timber decking laid longitudinally; these transoms and the deck may be later replacements. Most of the decking is now missing and many transoms are heavily corroded. Two parallel flanged cast-metal beams formerly ran along the top of the deck to carry wheeled bogeys to prevent wear on the timber; part of one track survives. The principal girders serve as parapets and are braced to the oversailing ends of the transoms by diagonal L-section metal struts, affixed with nuts and bolts. A cast-iron water pipe runs across the river, hung from the downstream ends of the transoms. A steel palisade fence now blocks the north-west end of the bridge.

The bridge is now derelict, though a metal plaque formerly affixed to it read "Brownlie & Murray, makers, Possil Iron Works, 1896"; this plaque has since been removed. Brownlie & Murray was established in 1887 at Possilpark, Glasgow, and specialised in galvanised corrugated sheds, warehouses, railway stations, wrought-iron fencing and railings, and iron and steel buildings. The bridge first appears on Ordnance Survey 25-inch maps from 1901–02.

The bridge has group value with the mill complex and is of local historical interest as the sole surviving physical reminder of the mill-related houses that once stood on the County Down side of the river, specifically at Lock View, Down Villas and Lagan Terrace. It is rare as the only surviving example of this bridge type on the River Lagan and may be among the few surviving Irish examples of Brownlie & Murray's work.