NEWBRIDGE TOWNLAND-BALLYMACARRETT
Belfast is a city that was brought about by the amalgamation of a number of small villages and communities. Back in the 1750’s most of these villages were starting out with country folk moving into the town. In the town land of Ballymacarrett there were a number of these small villages springing up, amongst them were the Lagan Village, Gooseberry Corner, and the one I will talk about New Bridge.
Death at River Crossing
Our story begins with the tragic death of one Richard McCleery, a Master Baker from the town land of Ballymacarrett in the County of Down, the land at this time was owned by the Pottinger family. In 1755 Richard McCleery was returning home on horseback after attending a family reunion in Newtownards, and on arriving at the Connswater River, he would have found that the river was in full flow because of the heavy rains and high tides. The only crossing point at this time were large stepping-stones and it was while attempting to cross at this point, that he was washed away and drowned. His horse was found two days later wandering on the Strands near Hollywood and his body was washed ashore a week later.
Public Outcry
Because of the outcry and publicity that this incident had provoked, the people of Ballymacarret made protest about this and other events, through their land agent Thomas Pottinger. In the year 1755 the Grand Juries of Down moved that a new bridge over the Connswater River and a straight road be built, from were the roads from Holywood and Newtownards meet, and down to the Long Bridge that leads into Belfast Town. This work was completed in 1758, but because of the slob lands it was not possible to build a straight road to the bridge, and an S bend had to be put in. This was called the Bridge End, and the name remains the same today. The straight road was named the New Road and was renamed the Newtownards Road at the end of the 1800s, while the Bridge was called the Connswater Bridge after the Conn O Neill river “connswater” which at this time was a wide fast flowing river coming off the Castlereagh Hills.
The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution
Ballymacarrett was at this time beginning to expand with the reclaiming of the slob lands, and the arrival of industries like Smylies Glassworks, and a Foundry. The area that we now know as the Newtownards Road was also at this time used as a holiday retreat for the gentry of the town,
as it had a long strand, and an advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter in 1788 read as follows, “House to let in the Healthy surroundings of Ballymacarrett, stables included”
With the building of the Connswater Bridge and the opening of the new industries at the Bridgend, and because of the poverty and hardships in the country areas, more country folk started moving into the area looking for work, and a small settlement called “Newbridge” started to grow up around this part of the river. Some were weavers and they built small crofts and set up hand looms to try and make a living. Other people would use the river as a means of support, either by fishing or using small barges to transport the raw materials to the mills that were beginning to spring up along the river.
The Settlers and the Development of Area.
These people built one room stone cottages with thatched roofs and in doing so developed the village of Newbridge, as the Industrial Revolution took hold and the population increased. The building of new streets of two up/two down houses, and the opening of the large industries for the production of linen, whiskey and rope were other major developments. These industries between them employed 1000’s of people, and it was not long before the village became a town and eventually a suburb of Belfast.
There were four major employers along the course of the river in the mid to late 1800’s. As you came up the river from the Lough the first was the Connswater Distillery, now the site of a new housing development called Lewis Court. The second one was the large mortar works in Manderson Street. Avoneil Distillery was the next one and is now the site of the new outlets behind the old Skipton Street whilst the fourth was the Owen O Cork Mill on the Beersbridge Road and is still in use. It was around this time that a number of small ropewalks opened up around the Connswater area these were called walks because of the walking involved in the production of ropes. The workers had to walk up and down throwing power over the hemp to bind the rope. People at that time did not know that the joining together of these ropewalks, would lead to the biggest Rope works in the world. The two distillers on the river produced over 4 million gallons of whiskey a year, and the mortar works like the distillers drew their raw materials by barge up the river. The sand for the mortar works and the barley for the Whiskey, was brought from County Armagh down the Lagan Canal by barge and up into Connswater.
Along came the Railway.
The biggest change that came to the area and probably led to the name of Newbridge getting lost in time was the coming of the railway, and the subsequent building of the Hollywood Arches. This took place in the early 1850’s when the Belfast & Co. Down railway line was extended to take in Ballygowan and Downpartrick, and on to Newcastle, while another line branched out to Newtownards, and Donaghdee. With the Shipyards being taken over by H&W, and with the need for more labour, this meant the area became a popular place to live in, and a number of streets of low cost housing were built to meet the demand. The streets along the right hand side going up Bloomfield Avenue from the Newtownards Road were called First, Second, Third, and Fourth Streets now called Oakdale St, Ashdale St, Bloomfield St, and Greenville St and on the other side of the Newtownards Road were Connswater Street, Townsley Street and Manderson Street.
Expanding Area.
The area around what we now call the Arches, became commercialised at the end of the 1800’s and this was brought about with the demand to meet the needs of the expanding community. As well as the Ropeworks and Mills, the Bloomfield Bakery opened on a large site at the bottom of Bloomfield Avenue. This building had the bakery to the ground floor and the rear upstairs of the building was used to stable over a hundred horses; the entrance was in Oakdale Street, as was the area for storing the delivery carts. There were four watering holes in the area. They were the Clock Bar, the Bloomfield Bar, the First & Last, and the Albert Bar better known as Ben Ls after the owner. Then there were no Churches or Church halls in the immediate area. Back at the Arches the railway was, in the years before the Great War carrying over a million passengers a year across the Newtownards Road.
Gateway to the East.
In 1682 the first bridge to be built over the Lagan linking Belfast with Ballymacarrett was known as the Old Long Bridge. The bridge is best described in an old Belfast street rhyme.
“The old long bridge some twenty feet wide,
With twenty-one arches spanning the tide,
Holes made in the walls to drain off the wet,
And niches for safety when vehicles met”.
Prior to the building of the bridge, travellers from the town of Belfast wishing to go to the village of Ballymacarrett had to cross at low tide by means of a paved ford. Many of the planters had built their mansions on the east side of the river Lagan. It became apparent that a bridge was necessary so as to afford them the luxury of travel at all times.
The plans are drawn up and building begins.
James Robb who was one of Ulster’s first architects and a star pupil of the famous Indigo Jones was commissioned by the Grand Jury of County Antrim and County Down to prepare drawings for the new bridge in the 1680.
On the 10th March 1682 Robb in the presence of the High Sheriffs of Antrim and Down and the Sovereign of Belfast laid the foundation of the east embankment of the first Lagan Bridge.
It had twenty-one arches–eighteen on the Down side and the remainder on the Antrim side. The structure was built of dressed freestone from Scrabo quarries. It’s length was about 2560ft– it was 20ft wide and had no footpath. The cost of building the bridge was £7,000 and that cost was borne by the counties of Antrim & Down with a contribution from the corporation of Belfast.
A Long Delay in Completing the Bridge.
At first the work progressed fairly rapidly the stones where brought by English bullock carts from Scrabo. However a dispute was to bring work to a halt.
In 1686 there was a disagreement between Robb the Architect and the Grand Juries that resulted in Robb being dismissed and a military artificer named Chad was employed to complete the bridge.
In a further twist the bridge was almost destroyed before it was finished. In 1689 the Duke of Schomberg led the Army of King William over the bridge on their way to the Boyne after they had landed at Groomsport.
The bridge almost collapsed under the weight of the heavy artillery but by1690 the bridge was in daily use by the local people. Two years later an arch collapsed and a report at the time tells us that the Rev. Mr. Abernethy, a dissenting minister from Antrim who along with his servant stood on the great bridge were the town joined Co Down. They stood upon the bridge for a considerable time but the Rev. gentleman cast his eye upon something at a distance which caught his fancy, they ran off suddenly, and the moment they moved, the arch upon which they had been standing fell down, so they narrowly escaped being crushed to pieces.
The bridge suffered further damage in 1696 when a ship collided with it. From then until 1778 it carried the ever-growing traffic between Belfast and County Down safely but then cracks began to appear causing widespread concern.
The bridge was used a lot by the military and army chiefs issued an order that all beating of drums and playing of music was to cease as they crossed. This was because of the fragile state of the bridge.
It was also at this time that commerce was growing on the east bank of the river, and among the busy factories was the famous glass works of Benjamin Edwards
United Irishmen’s link with the Bridge.
The bridge played its part in the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798.
Anne, the Dowager Countess of Roden recorded in her diary that in June of that year she stood on a ship in the Belfast Lough and watched the York Fencibles marching across the bridge into Belfast after they had been defeated at the Battle of Saintfield. On the 12th of June 1798 Major General Nugent at the head of a considerable body of troops crossed the bridge in the opposite direction to attack the United Irishmen at the battle of Ballynahinch.
It was also recorded that the Tay Fencibles closed the bridge for a week or more so that the rebels could not get out of Belfast to join the United Irishmen of County Down during the rising.
It is recorded that in the early years of the nineteenth century a local man by the name of Tantra Barbus often swam the Lagan by the side of the bridge in cold weather for a wager of a few coppers.
By 1805 the bridge had become very unsafe and could not carry the volume of traffic that was using it daily. Plans for a new bridge were prepared by a local architect called John Fuller. Due to the outbreak of war the scheme was postponed and it was not until 1840 that the work on the new Queens Bridge started.
The old bridge had played a major part in the growth of East Belfast but a modern structure was desperately needed. Belfast was about to emerge as a worldwide industrial force and with the revival in the linen trade money became available to build the new bridge. The Lagan Bridge, now known as the Albert Bridge, was already in place to carry the people and traffic over the river so after 150 years of service to Belfast the bridge was finally pulled down.
The new bridge took two years to complete and it was built of granite at a cost of £27,000. Charles Lanyon and John Frazer were the engineers and the builder was Francis Ritchie.
This bridge became known as the Queen’s Bridge and still serves the people of Ballymacarrett. The new structure still remains strong after 156 years of service. The bridge was officially opened in 1849 by Her Majesty Queen Victoria and is called after her. The Bridge is still the “Gateway to East” and of course all its eastern promise and wisdom.
