Bridge, High Street, Carnlough, Ballymena, Co Antrim

Bridge, High Street, Carnlough

This is a mid-19th century bridge of plain but clearly proportioned design, built between 1853 and 1854. It is of local historical interest as an important element in the industrial development of the village and forms part of a significant group with an associated bridge to the east over Harbour Road and a lime kiln nearby to the west.

The bridge is a segmental arched masonry structure originally built to carry a mineral railway but now serving as a pedestrian way. It is constructed of snecked white limestone rubble with shaped voussoirs. The voussoirs were originally exposed but are now obscured by later cement render applied to the extrados on each face of the arch. A projecting platband runs at carriageway level and continues into the abutments, which are broken forward to form piers projecting above parapet level. These piers are topped with oversailing courses and blocking courses. Modern steel railings are mounted on the parapets and run across the top of the piers. The carriageway is flat and the vault is constructed of squared limestone rubble.

The bridge was built by the Marquis and Marchioness of Londonderry to designs prepared by engineers from Seaham in Durham. It carried the former mineral railway which transported mineral ores and limestone from quarries in the hillside behind the town down to the harbour. An inscription plaque on the associated bridge over Harbour Road records: "Carnlough Railway and Harbour. Projected and commenced by Charles Stewart Vane, Marquis of Londonderry 1853. Finished by Frances Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry 1854."

The bridge stands within the built-up village area, spanning a street lined on both sides with terrace houses which adjoin three faces of the abutments. On the south face of the east side, the abutment extends eastwards beyond a modern corrugated metal gate as a retaining wall to the embankment, mostly exposed along the rear of a house in Harbour Road except where obscured by a modern lean-to garage. The carriageway, with the original railway tracks removed and replaced by a pedestrian path, continues eastwards over the similar former railway bridge spanning Harbour Road, and westwards between the upper gables of flanking houses in High Street, passing a contemporary lime kiln which stands behind one of the houses attached to the north side of the embankment, before terminating at a public open area.