Bridge in Esker North, County Longford

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Single-arch road bridge over Black River, built c. 1860. Segmental-headed arch with rusticated voussoirs to arch. Squared and dressed rubble stone to barrel and abutments. Rock-faced spandrel walls with projecting rock-faced piers, flanking arch, having rock-faced capstones over. Rock-faced string course at road/deck level. Rock-faced parapets with rock-faced coping over. Parapets now largely obscured by vegetation. Rubble stone wing walls to ends of parapets having rounded coping over. Located to the north of Drumlish and the southwest of Ballinamuck.

A robustly-built small-scale bridge, of mid nineteenth-century appearance, which is a pleasing feature in the rural landscape to the extreme north end of County Longford. This bridge shows evidence of highly skilled craftsmanship in its stonemasonry. The rustication to the piers and string course is finished with a straight edge to the corners, enhancing and emphasising the formal properties of the structure. The good quality heavily rock-faced masonry is a typical feature of the many bridges built throughout Ireland by the Board of Works during the mid-to-late nineteenth century, and particularly between c. 1847 - 60, suggesting that they may have been responsible for its construction. This bridge is similar in form to a number of other bridges in the area, including Drumury Bridge (13400101) and a bridge at Drumhlary (13400307), which suggests that it was built as part of a general drainage and/or bridge building programme. The present structure replaced an earlier bridge at this site (Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map 1838).

From the Buildings of Ireland (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage) record 13400502

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National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Maker not stated on source page, www.pinterest.com
Kmcnamee, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Maker not stated on source page, www.tripadvisor.co.uk
Maker not stated on source page, global-geography.org
Maker not stated on source page, uk.pinterest.com
Oliver Dixon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

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