Medieval annals record that a bridge stood at this spot until 1177, when a catastrophic flood swept it away entirely. That single detail places this otherwise unremarkable ford within the documentary record of medieval Ireland, where such events were considered significant enough to set down alongside battles and the deaths of kings.

The lost bridge served the monastic settlement at Glendalough, one of the great early Christian sites of Ireland, and its position opposite the main entrance to what the sources call the monastic 'city' suggests it was a functional and perhaps ceremonial threshold. The flood of 1177 was apparently severe enough to register across multiple sources, and the crossing was not replaced for centuries. A new bridge was eventually built shortly before 1873, possibly on or very near the line of the medieval one, restoring a connection that had been broken for the better part of seven hundred years.

The site itself is unassuming. There is no monument here, no interpretive panel marking the gap between the twelfth century and the nineteenth. The interest lies entirely in the knowledge that the river running below once carried away a structure that linked pilgrims and monks to the heart of one of Ireland's most significant early medieval foundations, and that the crossing was simply absent, unreplaced, for so long before someone finally thought to build again.