Bridge and steps, Harbour Road, Carnlough, Ballymena, Co Antrim

Bridge and Steps, Harbour Road, Carnlough

This is a mid-19th century bridge of special historic interest as an important element in the industrial development of the village. Although later alterations and additions detract from its original appearance, it remains, along with adjoining buildings, part of an interesting group in the main street of the town.

The bridge was built between 1853 and 1854 by Charles Stewart Vane, Marquis of Londonderry, and completed by Frances Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry. It was designed by engineers from Seaham in Durham to carry a mineral railway that brought ores and limestone from quarries in the hillside behind the town down to the harbour. The railway tracks have since been removed and replaced by a pedestrian path.

The principal structure is a segmental arched masonry bridge of plain but clearly proportioned style, built of snecked white limestone rubble with shaped voussoirs. The later cement render covering the extrados to each face of the main arch detracts from its original character. A projecting platband runs at carriageway level across the main arch and continues into the abutments, which break forward to form piers projecting above parapet level and topped with oversailing courses and blocking courses. The flat carriageway is vaulted in square limestone rubble. Modern steel railings are mounted on the parapets and run across the top of the piers.

A commemorative plaque recessed into the outer face of the southern parapet, with a moulded stone surround, bears the inscription: "Carnlough Railway and Harbour. Projected and commenced by Charles Stewart Vane, Marquis of Londonderry 1853. Finished by Frances Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry 1854".

On the west side, a smaller and lower segmental archway spans the pavement between the western abutment pier and the main abutment. The main abutment also breaks forward slightly on the south side to form an end pier which rises only to parapet level and does not project above it.

At the east end on the south side, a rectangular tower with segmental gables is attached to the bridge, rising to parapet height. It is built of limestone rubble with red brick block quoins to the south-west corner. Similar brick dressings appear around a rectangular doorway and rectangular window opening in the narrow front elevation facing west, with a plain brick surround to an ocular opening above the doorway. The doorway contains a pair of rectangular timber tongued and grooved sheeted doors. The window is blocked on the inside, and the ocular opening is closed on the outside by a circular wooden panel. The roof is covered in corrugated iron sheeting with coved coping.

A long south wall of the tower is blank, with a flight of concrete exterior steps built against it, contained by a limestone rubble wall surmounted by modern steel railings that rise to a brick block-dressed limestone rubble pier. The steps continue to carriageway level through a modern steel gate at the top landing. An east-facing rectangular doorway in the tower at the top landing is now closed with a plywood panel, with barbed wire covering the top of the gable. A balustrade wall of limestone rubble continues east from the steps as a retaining wall for the former railway embankment. The retaining wall of the embankment on the north side at the east end is of better quality limestone rubble, and both walls are surmounted by modern steel railings.

The tower and steps do not appear on the 1857 Ordnance Survey map and were therefore added later.

The bridge stands in the main street of the town, built between the gables of an adjoining terrace house on the south side at the west end and the former town hall at the north side, with the town hall tower also built against the bridge and rising above it. The carriageway, now carrying a pedestrian path, continues eastward to an elevated grassed area above the harbour, marked by modern steel gates, and continues westward over another similar but simpler former railway bridge which spans High Street. At the base of the bridge in Harbour Road on the south side, a telephone kiosk stands adjacent to the abutment pier at the west end, and a free-standing limestone rubble pier stands on the pavement at the bottom of the steps at the east end.