Skew Bridge

Single-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over canal, c.1800, with dressed stone voussoirs, cut-stone stringcourse and rubble stone parapet walls. Rubble stone walls to abutments. Cut-stone stringcourse. Rubble stone walls to parapet walls. Cut-stone coping. Single round arch. Dressed stone voussoirs. Squared rubble soffits with traces of render over. Sited spanning Grand Canal (Athy Branch) with tow paths to north-west and to south-east, and grass banks to canal.

Skew Bridge is a fine 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 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. 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. Skew Bridge forms an imposing landmark in the area, being surrounded on both sides by a flat landscape.