White Water Bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This bridge carries a minor road from Mill Bay to Cranfield over the White Water River. It comprises three equally sized segmental arches. The abutments, piers and voussoirs are of finely dressed granite, and the soffits and spandrels of roughly squared and coursed granite blocks. There is a projecting platband just above arch crown level. The parapet is of granite and Silurian rubble, brought to courses, with chamfered granite copings. There are angled cutwaters on both up- and downstream sides. These rise to arch spring level and are of ashlar granite. There is a small rectangular niche in the middle of the outside face of the upstream parapet; this may have been intended for a datestone, of which there is now no trace. The bed of the river is pitched.

Historical information

A wooden bridge is shown just upstream on the 1834 OS 6” map. ‘White Water Bridge’ is captioned from the 1859 map onwards and there is no evidence to suppose that it is other than the present structure. It is therefore of mid 19th century date.

Primary Sources:
1. PRONI – OS 6/3/57/1 (1834 map) - Down sheet 57.
2. PRONI - OS 6/3/57/2 (1859 map) - Down sheet 57.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A good example of a utilitarian mid-19th century bridge with the minimum of embellishment. It is also an interesting contrast to the earlier Lower White Water Bridge further upstream (HB16/04/034).