Eight Mile Bridge, Kilkeel Rd, Hilltown, Newry, Co Down

The Eight Mile Bridge carries the main road between Newry and Newcastle/Castlewellan over the Upper Bann River, just east of Hilltown. It dates to a period encompassing the 18th and 19th centuries, though the precise construction timing is unclear. The bridge is of historical interest as it was on the route of the mailcoach road between Newry and Downpatrick.

The bridge features three semicircular arches, with a slightly higher and wider central arch. It is primarily constructed from random granite rubble, with dressed angled cutwaters extending up the parapets and terminating just below the copings. The individual stones forming the arches (voussoirs) are also of dressed granite, as are the arch faces below the spring line. A metal girder footbridge has been added to the upstream (south) side, supported on the original piers (which were lowered for this purpose) and on new dressed granite abutments. The original masonry parapets have been largely retained, strengthened with internal ribbon pointing and capped with concrete. The parapets are 45cm wide and the road surface is 6.60m wide, giving a total bridge width of 7.50m. The continuous nature of the soffits, piers and abutments suggests a single build.

The bridge's name likely reflects its distance in Irish miles from Newry, and it is referenced by name on maps by Moll (1714), Harris (1743) and Kennedy (1755). While the use of rubble stonework suggests an 18th-century origin, the finely dressed stone indicates a possible 19th-century rebuild. The Ordnance Survey Memoir of the 1830s offers no details about the bridge, so any modifications made before or after that time are unconfirmed. The bridge is of industrial archaeological interest.