Pike Bridge

Two-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over canal and railway line, dated 1793, with ashlar voussoirs and cut-stone date stone/plaque. Broken coursed squared rubble stone walls. Cut-stone date stone/plaque. Cut-stone coping to parapet walls. Two elliptical arches. Ashlar voussoirs. Squared rubble stone soffits with traces of render over. Sited spanning Royal Canal and Midland and Great Western Railway line. Grass banks to canal with tow path to north, and grass banks to railway line.

The construction of the bridge attests to the high quality of stone masonry traditionally practised in the locality, and retains fine, crisp joints.

Pike Bridge is a fine cut-stone bridge that is somewhat unusual, spanning the Royal Canal and the Midland and Great Western Railway line – the bridge is one of a number of bridges on the sections of the Royal Canal and Midland and Great Western Railway line that pass through County Kildare and as such it is of considerable social and historic significance, representing a component of the canal and railway network development in Ireland in the late eighteenth and mid nineteenth centuries, which encouraged the commercialisation and/or industrialisation of the country. The construction of the bridge attests to the high quality of stone masonry traditionally practised in the locality, and retains fine, crisp joints. The construction of the arches that have retained their original shape is of technical or engineering merit.

The construction of the bridge attests to the high quality of stone masonry traditionally practised in the locality, and retains fine, crisp joints.