Portadown Town Trail
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Take the Portadown Town Trail... “The residents of Portadown have considerable taste. This fact soon becomes manifest to the stranger in going through the streets. Most of the buildings are well constructed and sightly, and the places of worship, in architectural outlines and internal decoration, are very much above the average.” (G.H. Bassett, County Armagh Guide and Directory 1888) For further information contact Portadown Tourist Information Point Millennium Court, William Street, Portadown, BT62 3NX t +44 (0)28 3835 0935 www.discovercraigavon.com www.facebook.com/discovercraigavon Take a journey Craigavon through the years of our past... Historical Society PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL Image: Charles P Friel Welcome to the Portadown Town Trail... Portadown takes its name from you something about each of these the Irish: Port an Dúnáin meaning: in numerical order. “port of To Armagh The Craigavon Historical Society first devised this trail in 1997 to recordn o n some of the most important and/n a the small g or interesting buildings in then town. u D Regrettably, some of the buildingso stronghold” T recorded in the original trail have N Our trail starts and finishes in the o been lostr through redevelopment. t car parking area near Shillington’s h w a Armagh Road warehouse (now part of Haldane However,y for the most part, the Fisher’s premises) by the River Bann, essential character and attractiveness Obins Street ay in Castle Street at the foot ioflw the 33 Ra of Portadown’s streetscape have town, but you can of course start Shillington St. Portadown People’s Park been preserved.32 and finish where you please. 31 Park Road 27 30 West Street The map (centre pages) marks 37 26 25 24 Church Street sites of interest; our trail text tells 28 23 22 19 Northway Cecil Street 21 34 20 King Street Market Street Hanover Street 29 18 Woodhouse Street Garvaghy Road 17 35 Thomas Street Carleton 16Street e 15 v William Street 36 A l l Thomas Street i High Street 14 37 M 10 9 Wilson St. Meadow Lane Meadow 8 11 13 12 Edward Street 7 6 Bridge Street Castle1 Street 3 River Bann 2 3 4 Meadow Lane Foundry5 Street Northway River Bann Goban St. Watson Street Joseph St. Carrickblacker Road B r id g e St re et PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL Beyond Northway is the railway The Dungannon line, opened in 1858, bridge, which carries the main railway was later extended to Omagh where it line between Belfast and Dublin. The joined up with the Londonderry and Over the Ulster Railway Company had reached Enniskillen Railway. These excellent the newly constructed station at lines of communication allowed Bann Portadown (on the other side of the Portadown to claim the title “the hub river) by 12th September 1842, much of the North” and helped form the delayed by soft ground. basis for its development as a major bridge centre for manufacturing. In 1845 work on the line to Armagh began and the hardest part was the Beyond the railway bridge can be seen The three bridges construction of the bridge across the tall brick chimney of the Castle he river flows north-west from the Bann. So poor was the ground Island factory of Ulster Carpet Mills, the Mountains of Mourne, that a timber structure was built a Portadown firm with a world-wide Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland some 30 miles away, towards with five 39 ft spans. In 1871 this was reputation for quality and innovation, Lough Neagh some 5 miles to the replaced by the present bridge with and across the Garvaghy Road from t Shillington’s north. Three bridges cross it. On its cylindrical uprights and iron spans the factory is the People’s Park, warehouse, Castle your right is the “old” road bridge Street (1), now which were replaced in 1990 with Portadown’s fine if underused park. Haldane Fisher, you or Bann Bridge carrying traffic into stronger steel beams. But back to the trail … see the main reason for town from the Lurgan direction, but Portadown’s position and more of that later. The line to Armagh was opened prosperity: this is a place where for in 1848; it was later extended to hundreds of years people travelling east-west by road have come to get On your left is the newer “Shillington” Monaghan and Clones, giving a link across the River Bann which was road bridge on concrete stilt pillars, to the Dundalk/Enniskillen line. itself at various times a major artery for transport, particularly via Lough built in 1970 to carry the Northway Neagh to the north. urban motorway, a key element in the plan for the “new city” of Craigavon, designed to provide a high-speed road link between Portadown and Lurgan. The bridge is 700 feet long and after spanning the river continues westward as a pillared viaduct over Castle Street. Image: Charles P Friel 4 5 PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL the earliest “summit-level” canal in the British Isles, having a total of 14 locks Navigation that enabled boats to navigate through Portadown hilly country. The canal gave Portadown on the Bann a role as an inland port, linked directly with Newry, and via Lough Neagh to Foundry he river has long been Coalisland along the Ulster Canal system ake a look across the river an important route for and to Lisburn and eventually Belfast before you start to walk. In transport. The Viking along the Lagan Canal. But from the mid the low buildings on the called Thorkils, whom the monks 19th century the railways put the canals other bank, the barges or Latinised as Turgesius, ruled most into terminal decline and the last barge “lighters” which plied the Newry of Ireland in the 9th century from sailed from Portadown to Newry in 1936. Canal were built. Behind are the his fleets on Lough Neagh and the The Foundry taller remains of the Portadown Shannon; the Bann river would have Now the only boating on the Bann is Foundry buildings, where iron brought employed many been an important route inland. 14th or recreational or for coarse fishing. But in by water or rail was cast by a local tradesmen - such 15th century dugout canoes, made from the Ulster Way, signposted here, will let firm between 1844 and the 1970s. The black oak, have been discovered during you walk along the river bank and then as blacksmiths, Foundry employed many tradesmen - excavations along the river banks. In the the old canal towpath all the 18 miles welders, fitters such as blacksmiths, welders, fitters Elizabethan wars there were rival fleets to Newry – at the “Point of Whitecoat” and structural and structural steel-workers - as well on Lough Neagh and again in the wars about one mile out of town, the canal as specialist foundry workers such as steel-workers - as of 1641 to 1647. and rivers Cusher and Bann all converge. moulders and patternmakers. well as specialist If you prefer to cycle, the towpath also In more recent times, shallow-draft forms part of a 20 mile section of Route foundry workers About 20 small houses were built barges, known locally as “lighters”, 9 on the National Cycle Network. such as moulders nearby to house them. The Foundry carried coal, timber and other heavy and patternmakers. also had its own boat slipway, and products between the Lough and Newry four or five other quays were along the Newry Canal, which joins connected with Foundry Street, the Bann about a mile upstream. The such as a coal quay and a sand Newry Canal was built primarily to quay etc. carry coal from the Tyrone coalfields down to Carlingford Lough and thence to Dublin. Started in 1731 and opened in 1742, its first engineer, Richard Cassels, Lighter being launched on the River Bann was replaced by Thomas Steers. It was from Portadown Foundry 6 7 PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL PORTADOWN TOWN TRAIL Now only used for storage, the pump (architects Arthur Williams & Sons of house suffered a further indignity Dublin). Walk under the bridge (3), and when one end was demolished, you will notice that half-way along the destroying the symmetry of the roof changes from a stone to a Shillington’s graceful, rather Oriental, curved reinforced concrete arch. This marks roof line. But at least the sewage the start of the widening scheme warehouse pipe has gone. carried out in 2005 to ease traffic flow over the bridge. The new stone facings hillington’s (now Haldane blackstone, a black basalt known locally A plaque on its landward side records and parapets of the widened bridge Fisher), on your right, as whinstone; often the door and the names of Portadown’s Urban lack the character of those used on the has been supplying building window surrounds would be faced District Councillors for that year - original part of the bridge but they are materials and hardware of every with brick in different colours. many of them well-known business a great improvement on the utilitarian kind to the town and surrounding people locally - and the civil engineers metalwork which had been added areas for nearly two centuries. The main warehouse is approximately for the works, Taylor and Wallace of when the bridge was previously 75m long and the windows and Newcastle upon Tyne. widened in 1922 as an unemployment Thomas Shillington (1767-1830), a entrances which formerly opened out on relief scheme; many of those employed Methodist from Aghagallon in Co. to Shillington’s Quay have been blocked As you approach the north face of were ex-servicemen of the Antrim, acquired the quay at this off.