Survey Data

Reg No

15702002


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Scientific, Technical


Original Use

Bridge


Date

1785 - 1795


Coordinates

298373, 145069


Date Recorded

13/08/2007


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Six-arch hump back road bridge over river, under construction 1790. Bypassed, 1976. Now disused. Part overgrown coursed rubble stone walls centred on triangular cutwaters to piers on granite or limestone ashlar bases having overgrown pyramidal capping with rubble stone diagonal soldier course coping to parapets. Series of six segmental arches with lichen-spotted cut-limestone voussoirs. Sited spanning River Slaney with unkempt banks to river.

Appraisal

A bridge erected by the Oriel Brothers of Hampshire representing an important component of the late eighteenth-century civil engineering heritage of County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one succeeding a bridge annotated as "Scarewalsh [sic] Bridge" by Taylor and Skinner (1778 pl. 154), suggested not only by the construction in unrefined local fieldstone offset by rough cut dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the River Slaney: meanwhile, a benchmark remains of additional interest for the connections with cartography and the preparation of maps by the Ordnance Survey (established 1824).