Its side elevations are decorated with pilasters and brick quatrefoils, a level of ornamental attention unusual for a structure carrying traffic over a modest river. There are also the remains of a pointed blind door on the east side and rectangular door openings on the west, each with stone surrounds and hood mouldings. Door openings in a bridge are strange enough on their own; blind doors, which are purely decorative features with no functional opening behind them, are stranger still.

The bridge carries a road over the River Blarney, and its construction involved at least two distinct phases. The original crossing was a single sandstone arch, whose roughly shaped voussoirs, the wedge-cut stones that form an arch and lock it under compression, were retained at the base when a new segmental arch replaced it. That replacement arch is the more elaborate one visible today, built using alternating blocks of limestone and sandstone to create a banded, almost striped effect. The whole structure sits on a slight plinth, giving it a composed, intentional quality. The ornate side elevations, with their decorative brickwork and pilasters, are thought to be contemporary with the original bridge rather than added later, which suggests that even the first version of this crossing was conceived as something worth looking at, not merely something useful. Its location within the demesne of Blarney Castle, a substantial estate with a long history of architectural investment, goes some way towards explaining that ambition.