Glenaree Bridge and 22nd Lock

Single-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over canal, c.1800, with ashlar voussoirs, keystone and rubble stone parapet walls. Rubble stone walls. Rubble stone parapet walls. Single round arch. Ashlar voussoirs with cut-stone keystone. Squared rubble stone soffits with traces of render over. Sited spanning Grand Canal (Athy Branch) with tow path to east and grass banks to canal.Canal lock, c.1800, to north-east comprising sections of rubble stone retaining walls having timber lock gates over with integral pedestrian bridge.

Glenaree Bridge (and 22nd Lock) is a fine stone bridge that forms an imposing feature on the Grand Canal (Athy Branch) and is one of a group of bridges on the section of that canal that passes through County Kildare. The construction of the arch that has retained its original shape is of technical and engineering merit. The bridge (and sections of canal retaining walls) exhibits good quality stone masonry and fine, crisp joints. The lock gates retain their original mechanisms, which are of considerable technical merit. The bridge and lock group is of considerable historical and social significance as a reminder of the canal network development in Ireland, which brought about many technical advances and encouraged the development of commercial activity in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries.