Dated 1858, it names the structure Colthurst Bridge, records a surveyor called M. Forrest, and identifies the contractor under the curious word "Watrag", likely a local place name or estate reference connected to the Colthurst family, who were prominent Cork landowners during the nineteenth century. That level of attribution, preserved in limestone on a rural crossing, is relatively uncommon, and it transforms what might otherwise pass as an unremarkable country bridge into something with a legible identity.

The bridge itself is built from random ashlar, meaning stonework laid without uniform courses, using local sandstone given a rock-faced finish that leaves the surface deliberately rough-hewn rather than smoothed. The structural arches are segmental, a shallow curve rather than a full semicircle, suited to keeping the road gradient gentle over a wide crossing. Their voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that lock an arch together, are cut and dressed limestone, brought in for precision work even where the bulk of the fabric is sandstone. The cutwaters, those pointed projections on the bridge piers that divide the river current and deflect flood debris, are bluntly rather than sharply pointed, a practical Victorian compromise. A limestone string course runs along the elevation, and the parapet is capped with flat limestone slabs, giving the whole structure a composed, purposeful finish across its 7.7-metre width.

The bridge sits on a roughly north-northwest to south-southeast axis where the Blackwater cuts through north Cork, and the combination of materials, the named surveyor, and the mid-Victorian date place it firmly within the era of improving landlord infrastructure that reshaped rural road networks across Ireland in the decades following the Famine. The Colthurst name on the parapet is the bridge's most distinctive feature; worth a pause to read it before crossing.