Bridge, Bridgetown, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford |
Bridges & Crossings
The name of the village tells you everything and nothing.
Bridgetown, County Wexford, exists because of a crossing, and the crossing still exists, in much the same form it has taken for centuries, carrying traffic over a quiet east-west stream on four stone arches of unequal proportion, the two central spans wider than the flanking ones, a practical asymmetry that gives the structure a modest, workmanlike character.
A bridge at this location appears in the index to the Civil Survey of 1654 to 1656, one of the great administrative documents produced in the aftermath of the Cromwellian conquest, which recorded landholdings across Ireland in exhaustive detail. Its presence there suggests the crossing was already established and recognised as a named feature of the landscape by the mid-seventeenth century, though the structure visible today may represent later rebuilding or repair in local stone. The cutwater projections on the upstream, eastern face of the piers are a telling detail: these angled or rounded extensions were built to deflect the force of the current and prevent it from undermining the stonework, a standard feature of pre-modern bridge construction and a sign that whoever built this crossing understood the river's behaviour across seasons.