Survey Data
Reg No
31207021
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Scientific, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
Date
1890 - 1900
Coordinates
137484, 300025
Date Recorded
04/11/2010
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Single-arch railway bridge over road, opened 1895; extant 1895. Closed, 1975. Now disused. Creeper- or ivy-covered tuck pointed snecked rock faced limestone walls between tuck pointed snecked rock faced limestone battered abutment walls with rock faced cut-limestone stringcourses supporting parapets having drag edged rock faced cut-limestone coping. Single segmental arch with red brick header bond voussoirs. Sited spanning road with overgrown embankments to road.
Appraisal
A bridge identified as an integral component of the late nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of Swinford on account of the connections with the development of the Waterford Limerick and Western Railway (WLWR) line by the Waterford Limerick and Western Railway (WLWR) Company, the so-called "Burma Road" opened (1895) in response to Arthur James Balfour's Light Railways (Ireland) Act, 1889, with the architectural value of the composition confirmed not only by the rock faced surface finish demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arch making a pleasing visual statement in a sylvan street scene: meanwhile, a discreet benchmark remains of additional interest for the connections with cartography and the preparation of maps by the Ordnance Survey (established 1824).