Survey Data
Reg No
13400816
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Bridge
Date
1850 - 1880
Coordinates
209623, 277737
Date Recorded
27/07/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Single-arch limestone road bridge over the Camlin River, built c. 1860. Segmental-headed arch with dressed limestone V-jointed voussoirs. Squared rock-faced limestone spandrel walls, abutments and wing walls. Dressed squared limestone masonry to barrel. Dressed limestone string course at arch springing point, running under barrel. Squared rock-faced limestone to parapets with rounded dressed limestone coping over. Bridge largely overgrown with vegetation. Located to the southwest of Newtown-Forbes.
Appraisal
A robustly-built medium-scale bridge, of mid nineteenth-century appearance, which is a pleasing feature in the rural landscape to the southwest of Newtown-Forbes. This bridge shows evidence of highly skilled craftsmanship in its stonemasonry, particularly to the voussoirs, the barrel, to the string course and to the parapets. The wide arch is of some technical and engineering merit. The good quality rock-faced masonry is a typical feature of the many bridges built throughout Ireland by the Board of Works/Office of Public Works during the mid-to-late nineteenth century, and particularly between c. 1847 - 60, suggesting that they may have been responsible for its construction. This bridge is quite similar in form to Cloonart Bridge (13400803), which crosses the Rinn River to the northwest of Newtown-Forbes and may have been built at the same time as part of a general drainage and/or bridge building programme. The present structure replaced an earlier bridge at this site (Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map 1838), at a time when the Camlin River was much wider than its present form, which indicates that the Camlin was dredged post 1838. This earlier bridge spanned two millraces (associated with corn mills to the north River Shannon a short distance to the northwest/west.