Survey Data
Reg No
40307031
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Foot bridge
Date
1880 - 1890
Coordinates
235905, 316570
Date Recorded
19/06/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Four-arched limestone bridge over the River Erne, built c.1885, formerly carrying the narrow gauge Cavan-Leitrim Railway, having a narrow flat deck between high river banks. Now in use as pedestrian bridge. Rendered parapets with U-shaped refuges over half-round piers. Rock-faced ashlar spandrels and piers of varying course heights with string course below parapets. Segmental arches of regular rock-faced voussoirs, smooth dressed arch barrels on rock-faced abutments, having rounded ends forming cutwaters to upstream and downstream sides with smooth dressed chamfered caps as bases to piers.
Appraisal
The Cavan and Leitrim Railway opened for goods and passenger traffic in October 1887 as a narrow-gauge rail line to serve the coal mine at Arigna and Lough Allen. The section from Belturbet to Dromod in Co Leitrim was light railway, with a tramway from Ballinamore to Arigna. The line connected to the Great Northern Railway in Belturbet, and was Ireland's last steam narrow-gauge line, surviving on coal traffic from Arigna until 1959. As a surviving feature of this line the bridge is an important element of the civil engineering heritage of Co Cavan. It is well proportioned and articulated with interesting pedestrian refuges and piers rising from rounded cutwaters, and expertly constructed of sharply-detailed ashlar. The bridge makes a valuable contribution to the historic landscape of Belturbet and attests to the ambitions and energy of the railway company and the technical skill employed in the construction of Irish railways.