Survey Data
Reg No
31310014
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Scientific, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Bridge
Date
1820 - 1830
Coordinates
120007, 273805
Date Recorded
13/01/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Three-arch bridge over river, built 1822-6. Underpinned, 1850-2. Part repointed coursed rough cut limestone walls centred on drag edged tooled limestone ashlar rounded triangular cutwaters to piers having domed pyramidal capping with cut-limestone stringcourses supporting parapets having drag edged tooled cut-limestone coping. Series of three round arches with drag edged tooled limestone ashlar voussoirs. Sited spanning Annies River with unkempt banks to river.
Appraisal
A bridge erected to designs by Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), Engineer to the Western District (appointed 1822; replaced 1831), representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of south County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition confirmed not only by the construction in a rough cut limestone offset by "sparrow pecked" dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the Annies River realigned (1850-2) under the supervision of Frederick Barry CE (1821-85) of the Board of Works (appointed 1847; resigned 1855) as part of the county-wide famine relief drainage works completed under the Drainage (Ireland) Act, 1846: 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).