Kilbrackan Bridge

The saved account records: Single-arch masonry road bridge spanning a watercourse between Glasshouse Lake and Rockfield Lough, built c.1840.

The saved account records: Rock-faced ashlar stone abutments, rock-faced ashlar voussoirs with dressed arrises to segmental arch rings, rendered soffit.

The saved account records: Rock-faced spandrels, parapet and coping of large projecting stones.

The saved account records: Squared rubble stone wing walls with cut stone coping, two buttresses to north side of western approach.

Kilbrackan Bridge matters for the exact reasons given in its official assessment, rather than merely because it is an old structure. The source records: A well-executed stone bridge of simple and functional design. The stonework elevates the simple design with an attractive textural contrast achieved between the rock-faced ashlar and the lines of the arch and projecting coping. Spanning the boundary to Co. Leitrim, Killbracken Bridge is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1836, and the Cavan Grand Jury sought funding for a road between it and Killeshandra in 1837. The present bridge appears to be of later nineteenth-century construction, possibly rebuilt by the Board of Works as part of arterial drainage improvements, but may retain wings from the earlier… This explains what the place adds to local life, the street or the surviving built history.