Survey Data
Reg No
13701005
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Scientific, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
In Use As
Bridge
Date
1815 - 1820
Coordinates
304752, 308183
Date Recorded
14/10/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Three-arch bridge over river, built 1819. Repointed limestone ashlar walls between repointed limestone ashlar battered piers with cut-limestone Torus stringcourses supporting benchmark-inscribed parapets having cut-limestone coping. Series of three elliptical arches between dome-topped limestone ashlar rounded cutwaters with repointed rusticated limestone ashlar crow stepped voussoirs. Sited spanning Castletown River.
Appraisal
A bridge representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of County Louth with the architectural value of the composition confirmed not only by the construction in a crisply-cut silver-grey limestone demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement over the Castletown River. NOTE: Dundalk Bridge occupies the site of an earlier bridge shown on Taylor and Skinner's Maps of the Roads of Ireland (1778, 4). That bridge was criticised (1816) by Reverend Elias Thackeray (1771-1854) as 'old and ill-adapted for so respectable a town and so great a thoroughfare' although he also pointed out that 'in the course of the present year this defect will be remedied as a new bridge is to be erected' (Statistical Survey of Dundalk Parish 1816). A presentment of £4,838 was made at the 1818 Spring Assizes to William Brown and David Heney to build a new bridge over the Castletown River (Tempest's Annual 1910).