Allen Bridge

Single-arch rubble stone road bridge over canal, dated 1796, with cut-sandstone voussoirs. Extensively renovated and widened, c.1960, with single span added to north-east and to south-west. Rubble stone walls to original bridge. Reinforced concrete walls, c.1960, to additions with concrete stringcourse and concrete block parapet walls. Cut-stone date stones/plaques. Single elliptical arch to original bridge. Cut-red sandstone voussoirs. Rubble stone soffits with traces of render over. Single flat span, c.1960, to north-east and to south-west. Reinforced concrete lintels. Sited spanning Royal Canal with stone retaining walls to canal.

Allen Bridge is a fine stone bridge that forms an imposing feature on the Royal Canal and is one of a group of bridges on the section of that canal that passes through County Kildare. The construction of the original arch that has retained its original shape is of technical and engineering merit – similarly the replacement spans to north-east and to south-west are of technical engineering merit as an example of late twentieth-century bridge building. The bridge exhibits good quality stone masonry and fine, crisp joints, notably to the cut-red sandstone voussoirs. The bridge is of considerable historical and social significance as a reminder of the canal network development in Ireland, which brought about many technical advances and developed commercial activity in the late eighteenth century, and as evidence of growing commuter/national traffic that necessitated the widening of the bridge.