Maria's Bridge, Tollymore Park, Newcastle, Co Down

Maria's Bridge is a small, rubble-built bridge of around the 1840s, located in the north-west corner of Tollymore Park, Newcastle, County Down. It carries a forest track over a stream that flows into the Shimna River. The bridge has a single span with a semicircular arch and low parapets topped with rough stone coping. The track surface over the bridge is mainly gravel. Significant shrub and tree growth on either side of the bridge largely obscures views of both its faces.

The bridge was built sometime between 1834 and 1859 and is named after Maria Le Despenser, wife of the 3rd Earl of Roden, whom he married in 1813. It is recorded on the Ordnance Survey map of 1859.

The bridge sits within the wider landscape of Tollymore Park, whose history stretches back to the late medieval period, when the area was under the lordship of the Magennis family of Upper Iveagh. In 1611, Brian MacHugh Magennis received a royal grant of seven and a half townlands in the area from King James I. The estate remained in the Magennis male line until around 1685, when Bernard Magennis died childless and passed it to his sister Ellen, who was married to William Hamilton. On her death the estate passed to their son James, and his son — also named James, who inherited in 1701 — was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and Earl of Clanbrassil (of the second creation) in 1728.

This James, widely remembered by his earlier title of Lord Limerick, began transforming Tollymore into a naturalistic landscape demesne around 1720. He enclosed much of the land as a deer park, undertook large-scale tree planting, built a hunting lodge and the so-called Old Bridge, and rebuilt the parish church at Bryansford — the small estate village to the north of the park, named after his ancestor Brian Magennis. Around 1750, he began construction of a larger house, probably drawing on advice from his friend, the English architect Thomas Wright, who visited Ireland in 1746–47 and stayed at Tollymore Park in September 1746. Dr Pococke, writing in his Tour of Ireland in 1752, noted that Lord Limerick had by that date completed two rooms of his new "pretty lodge" and had also built "a thatch'd open place to dine in" on the south side of the Shimna River. Just to the north of the house, the Clanbrassil Barn was added in 1757, with the Horn Bridge built to the south around the same time. Lord Limerick died in 1758 and was succeeded by his son, also named James, who extended the house and continued his father's planting programme.

In the 1780s, the second James erected the Barbican gate at the eastern entrance to the park, the gothick gate at the Bryansford entrance, the hermitage, gothick follies, a steward's lodge on the Hilltown Road, and a number of bridges within the park, including Ivy Bridge, Parnell's Bridge, and Foley's Bridge — the last named after his wife, Grace Foley. These additions, which also appear to have been influenced by Thomas Wright, together with the planting, made Tollymore one of the most admired estates in Ireland. Bernard Scalé's map of Tollymore from 1777 gives a clear impression of the picturesque character of the park at this period, showing a rolling landscape with extensive planting, meadows, rivers, streams, and woodland walks. An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of 26 April 1785 offered lodgings in Bryansford village with "most pleasing prospect of the Right Hon. Earl of Clanbrassil's much admired demesne, which is beautiful to the sight and extensive to the bounds," noting that the wholesome air and "herbage on which the goats feed makes it much frequented by ladies and gentlemen for the recovery of lost health."

James, 2nd Viscount Limerick and 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil, died without issue in 1798, and the park passed to his sister Anne, wife of Robert Jocelyn, 1st Earl of Roden. Their son Robert, 2nd Earl of Roden, who inherited the estate in 1802, built the Bryansford and Barbican gate lodges, the latter of which has since been demolished. He also erected an obelisk monument to the east of the house in memory of his second son James, who died unexpectedly in 1812. The 2nd Earl and his successor Robert, the 3rd Earl, further developed Bryansford village, making it "a pleasing place of residence for those persons that like a quiet retreat." A Roman Catholic church was built at the eastern edge of the village in 1820, school houses in 1823 and 1826, and labourers' dwellings and the large dower house known as The Nest were added around the same time. The 3rd Earl also constructed a water-powered sawmill within the demesne and in 1865 added another small lodge to the east. He enlarged Tollymore House itself by adding an additional storey to the wings and a tall, somewhat incongruous, French château-style roof to the original central block.

Tollymore Park remained entirely in the hands of the Roden family until 1930, when the 8th Earl sold two-thirds of the land to the Ministry of Agriculture for afforestation. The remaining third was purchased by the Ministry in 1940, and during the Second World War Tollymore House and part of the grounds were used by the Army. After the war the house fell into disrepair and was demolished by Lord Roden in 1952. In 1955 Tollymore became the first state forest in Northern Ireland to be designated a Forest Park and was opened to the public. It has continued to be developed for timber production, recreation, conservation, and education ever since. Although the house itself has gone, most of the park's 18th and early 19th century gates, bridges, and lodges have survived.