22/09/2024
The Red Arch, Antrim Coast Road
The Red Arch is one of the most spectacular features on the Antrim Coast Road.
The Arch was cut through the sandstone headland by the landlord and philanthropist, Francis Turnly, in 1817. He lived at Drumnasole near Carnlough and he built the arch so that he could regularly visit the village of Cushendall which he owned. Before then, there was no Coast Road, as we know it today, and this meant that his journey was hazardous and he would have had to negotiate the steep and narrow track up to the higher ground to the west. It was to avoid having to do this that he tunnelled through the headland between Waterfoot and Cushendall forming the now famous Red Arch. It forms a perfect parabola, thirty-six feet long, twenty-two feet wide and thirty feet high, the soffit is lined with concrete.
