Green's Bridge

Green's Bridge

Green's Bridge[1]
Green's Bridge on the river Nore in 2010
Coordinates52°39′29″N 7°15′13″W / 52.6580457°N 7.2535254°W / 52.6580457; -7.2535254
CrossesRiver Nore
LocaleKilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland
Official nameGreen's Bridge
Maintained byKilkenny County Council
Heritage statusProtected Structure[2]
NIAH[3]Reg. No.12004007[3]
KN-130[1]
Websitebuildingsofireland.ie
Characteristics
DesignArch bridge/palladian-style
MaterialLimestone
Trough constructionlimestone
Pier constructionlimestone
History
ArchitectGeorge Smith
Constructed byWilliam Colles (c. 1710–1770)
Construction start1765[1]
Construction cost£2828[4]
Opened1766[1]
ReplacesGreat Bridge of Kilkenny
Location
Map

Green's Bridge, or Greensbridge, is an elegant, Palladian-style, limestone arch bridge that crosses the river Nore in Kilkenny, Ireland.[1] The bridge is a series of five elliptical arches of high-quality carved limestone masonry with a two-arch culvert to the east.[1][3] Its graceful profile, architectural design value, and civil engineering heritage endow it with national significance.[3] Historian Maurice Craig described it as one of the five-finest bridges in Ireland.[5] It was built by William Colles and designed by George Smith, and was completed in 1766.[1][3] The bridge was 250 years old in 2016.

The bridge's location on the north side of Kilkenny has been a ford since at least the middle of the 10th century.[6] The first bridge there was built in the 12th century by settlers from Flanders and has been rebuilt many times due to frequent floods.[6][7][8] The bridge itself is known from medieval times; it was described as "the Bridge of Kilkenny", "the big bridge of Kilkenny", and "Grines Bridge"; the origin of the name Green's Bridge, however, is uncertain.[9][10] The "Great Flood of 1763" destroyed the previous bridge.[3]

Green's Bridge was designed by George Smith and built by William Colles.[1] Colles was the owner of a marble works and an inventor of machinery for sawing, boring, and polishing limestone.[11] Smith designed an almost-true copy of the Bridge of Tiberius (Italian: Ponte di Augusto e Tiberio) in Rimini, Italy, as described by Andrea Palladio in I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) (1570).[3][12] Parapets were added during a renovation in 1835.[1]

Temporary works to the bridge, which is currently used as a road bridge, carried out in 1969 have had a negative impact and the general appraisal is that it needs restoration.[3][13] The estimated the cost of the bridge was £2,828.[4]

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