One of its six semicircular arches, the eastern one, sits noticeably off-centre and has been patched in cement, while the rest of the structure retains its original random-rubble stonework. The bridge runs on a slight angle to the river rather than straight across it, giving the crossing an unhurried, practical quality that speaks more to necessity than design. Its overall width is around 3.2 metres, and a later widening on the upstream side added roughly four metres more, using arches that are straight-sided rather than semicircular and finished with more carefully dressed voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that lock an arch in place. The low pointed cutwaters, the projecting piers that break the current and protect the foundations, survive on that widened section.

The bridge is thought to date from the seventeenth century, and there is documentary support for placing it early. It appears on the Down Survey barony map of 1655 to 1656, a remarkable cartographic project carried out under William Petty that recorded land ownership across Ireland following the Cromwellian confiscations. Being marked on that survey confirms the bridge was already a functioning crossing by the mid-seventeenth century at the latest. About 700 metres to the south lies Bridgetown Abbey, a medieval foundation whose presence helps explain why a crossing here mattered at all. Roads and bridges tend to follow older patterns of movement, and a route connecting travellers to a religious house would have justified the effort of building in stone.