Survey Data
Reg No
11903404
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Bridge
Date
1790 - 1810
Coordinates
265378, 197385
Date Recorded
--/--/--
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Single-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over canal, c.1800, with dressed stone voussoirs, rubble stone parapet walls and coping. Coursed rubble stone walls. Rubble stone curved wing walls. Rubble stone coping to parapet walls. Single elliptical arch. Dressed cut-stone voussoirs. Dressed stone soffits. Sited spanning Grand Canal (Athy Branch) with tow path to south-west and grass banks to canal.
Appraisal
Milltown Bridge is a fine stone bridge that forms an imposing feature on the Grand Canal (Athy Branch) and is one of a group of bridges on the section of that canal that passes through County Kildare. The construction of the arch that has retained its original shape is of technical and engineering merit. The bridge exhibits good quality stone masonry and fine, crisp joints, notably to the underside that is of finer construction than the walls. The bridge is of considerable historical and social significance as a reminder of the canal network development in Ireland, which brought about many technical advances and encouraging the development of commercial activity in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries.