Oldhead Quay

Pier, begun 1822; unfinished 1825; completed 1829; "perfect" 1830, on a cranked L-shaped plan with sandstone ashlar battered walls having benchmark-inscribed cut-limestone coping supporting tooled cut-limestone mooring posts. Set extending into Clew Bay.

A pier erected to a design by Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), Engineer to the Western District (appointed 1822; replaced 1831), and with financial support from Howe Peter Browne (1788-1845), second Marquess of Sligo (Wilkins 2009, 353), representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century built heritage of the environs of Louisburgh: meanwhile, a discreet benchmark remains of additional interest for the connections with cartography and the preparations of maps by the Ordnance Survey (established 1824).