39th Lock

Canal lock, built c. 1815, consisting of pair of restored timber and steel breast gates with timber footboards and balance beams. Set within dressed ashlar limestone lock chamber with ashlar limestone capstones having bevelled edges. Metal sluice machinery to the southwest of lock. Timber mooring post at intervals between gates. Associated lock keeper's house (13402343) to the southeast. Located adjacent to Draper’s Bridge (13402341) and to the west of Abbeyshrule.

This well-built canal lock that forms part of an important group of structures associated with the Royal Canal at Draper’s Bridge. The quality of the ashlar limestone construction of the lock walls is indicative of the grandiose ambitions of the Directors General of Inland Navigation (who took over responsibility for the Royal Canal following the dissolution of the Royal Canal Company in 1813). This lock has been designed and constructed with a high level of expertise indicating the importance of its role in the past and it represents an important element of the architectural and industrial heritage of County Longford. It forms part of a group of related structures along with Draper’s Bridge (13402341) to the west and the associated lock keeper’s house (13402343) to the southeast, and serves as an important reminder of the heyday of the canal building era prior to the demise of this transport system in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.