Survey Data
Reg No
31302702
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Scientific, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Bridge
Date
1815 - 1825
Coordinates
96959, 319965
Date Recorded
20/01/2011
Date Updated
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Description
Four-arch road bridge over river, designed 1817[?]; built 1820-1; dated 1820; extant 1838. Tuck pointed coursed cut-limestone walls centred on tooled limestone ashlar rounded triangular cutwaters to piers having domed pyramidal capping with cut-limestone "bas-relief" stringcourses supporting parapets having tooled cut-limestone coping centred on rope twist-detailed drag edged cut-limestone date stone ("1820"). Series of four elliptical arches between cast-iron "Pattress" tie plates with drag edged tooled limestone ashlar voussoirs. Sited spanning Owenmore River with unkempt banks to river. Additional photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A bridge erected 'by order of the Grand Jury [and the] Right Honourable Denis Browne [1763-1828] Foreman', and to a design by William Bald (c.1789-1857), cartographer and engineer (appointed 1809), widely regarded as a particularly important component of the early nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one colloquially titled "The Musical Bridge", confirmed not only by the "sparrow pecked" sheer limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the Owenmore River: meanwhile, a much-weathered benchmark remains of additional interest for the connections with cartography and the preparation of maps by the Ordnance Survey (established 1824).