Survey Data
Reg No
31306106
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Scientific, Social, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Bridge
Date
1820 - 1830
Coordinates
134804, 301483
Date Recorded
10/01/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Six-arch road bridge over river, built 1822-5[?]; complete 1826; extant 1838. Damaged, 1921/2. Coursed rubble limestone walls retaining sections of tuck pointed tooled limestone ashlar construction centred on triangular cutwaters to piers having pyramidal capping with rendered rounded coping to parapets. Series of six round or segmental arches with tooled limestone ashlar or repointed cut-limestone voussoirs. Sited spanning River Moy with unkempt grass banks to river.
Appraisal
A bridge erected to a design attributed to Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), Engineer to the Western District (appointed 1822; replaced 1831; Wilkins 2009, 249), representing an integral component of the early nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of the rural environs of Swinford with the architectural value of the composition confirmed not only by the surviving "sparrow pecked" stone work demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the River Moy: meanwhile, aspects of the composition clearly illustrate the near-total reconstruction of the bridge following an explosion during "The Troubles" (1919-23) (ibid., 247) with those works attributable to Edward Keville Dixon (1860-1942), County Surveyor for County Mayo (appointed 1922; retired 1924; IAA).