High Bridge

Single-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over canal, c.1800, with cut-stone voussoirs and cut-stone coping, with approach to south-east forming single-arch hump back perpendicular road bridge over stream. Squared rubble stone walls and curved flanking walls. Cut-stone coping. Single elliptical arch (arch to second bridge not visible). Cut-stone voussoirs. Cut-stone stringcourse to spring of arch. Rubble stone soffits with traces of lime render over. Sited spanning Grand Canal (Athy Branch) with perpendicular bridge spanning stream. Sections of stone cobbling to deck. Cut-stone retaining walls to canal with remains of tow path to north-west and to south-east.

High Bridge is a fine and unusual rubble 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 bridge is distinguished by the fact that the approach road to south-east also forms a perpendicular hump back road bridge over a stream (the stream running underneath the canal and the canal therefore acting as an aqueduct, in part at least). The construction of the arch that has retained its original shape is of technical and engineering merit. The bridge exhibits good quality stone masonry and fine, crisp joints. Also of interest is the exposed stone cobbling to the deck. 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 encouraged the development of commercial activity in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries.