Protected sectors

What's the story here?

Cheekpoint, charted as Cheek Point, is a village set 10 miles within and on the western shores of Waterford Harbour. It is located at the confluence of the River Suir and the River Barrow and is fronted by a small, drying quay with a pontoon that receives visiting craft. The pretty village is set into Malting Woods, which rises up the 150-metre-high Minaun Hill immediately behind. The Barrow Bridge and Great Island Power Station, on the opposite shore, make the village easy to locate.




A new [Autumn 2022] 63-meter-long pontoon has been added to the quay and the majority of the site photographs predate this addition. The approach channel to the pontoon has 1.5 metres LAT and the pontoon has 2.5 metres LAT. It has one allocated visitor berth that can accommodate vessels of up to 12 metres. The berth fee is €15 per night and is managed by Cheekpoint Boat Owners Association who may be contacted via cheekpointboa@gmail.com.




Provide the Cheekpoint Boat Owners Association with a mobile number in the mail and they will contact you with availability/arrangements. They are also planning to provide moorings, €10 per night, and all vessels on moorings or anchored may use the pontoon for landings.

Leisure vessels may anchor in a depth of 2.5 metres about 200 metres north of Cheekpoint Pier, just inside the channel. This alternate is the reserve of settled conditions as it is completely tide-rode and the boats need to freely swing with the tide to make it comfortable.

Shallow-draught vessels that can take to the mud will find complete protection dried out alongside the pier, but need to approach at high water. Up to 1.5 metres is available at springs and 0.6 metres at neaps, just inside the north wall. This decreases the further a vessel progresses into the inner harbour.

How to get in?

Use the Port of Waterford for details of seaward approaches, entry to Waterford Harbour and the run up the estuary.




Approaching Cheekpoint, the confluence of the Rivers Suir and Barrow, Kilmokea Power Station and the Barrow River railway swing bridge appears to the north. Cheekpoint will be found on the port side on the southern shore, opposite the rail bridge.





From the initial fix, set on the edge of the fairway and entrance to the approach channel (marked by two pairs of lit lateral buoys), the north pier will be clearly visible about 300 metres distant on a bearing of 250° T.




The east-northeast facing channel has a maintained depth of 1.5 metres LAT up to the end of the pier. At night the outer pair of lights are Q G, Q R, and the inner Fl(2) G 5s and Fl(2) R 5s.




The channel leads directly onto the east end of the pontoon. Berth as directed by the Cheekpoint Boat Owners Association. The small harbour, save for the channel and pontoon area, dries out as much as 200 metres from the shore at low water. The outer end of the north pier, however, has a maintained depth of 2 metres at LAT.




Leisure vessels may anchor in a depth of 2.5 metres about 200 metres north of Cheekpoint Pier just inside the channel. This is a better option in settled conditions as the boats need to swing with the tide to make it comfortable. Good mud holding will be found here.





Boats planning to come alongside and take to the bottom need to approach at high water. The eastern pier was entirely replaced in 2013. As already mentioned, 1.5 metres will be found at springs and 0.6 metres at neaps just inside the north wall, but this decreases the further a vessel progresses into the inner harbour.




Boats planning on a short visit will find their best option alongside the outer side of the north wall or the very end of the west face of this wall. An extra metre will be found on the outside walls, providing a tidal visitor with the most shore time.

Why visit here?

Cheekpoint’s name is an anglicisation of the Irish Pointe na Síge, which translates to ‘point of the streak’. The name is thought to originate from a river rock called Carraig na Síge, which, near low water, showed a trail (or streak) of foam on the ebb tide.

The tides and abundant fish of the river would likely have meant this sheltered nook of the River Suir was inhabited thousands of years ago. The early settlers would have ascended the slopes of the Minaun Hill to watch over the landing area. Legend has it that the giant Cainche Corcardhearg, son of Fionn of the Fianna, was stationed here to keep a watch over Leinster. After the Norman conquest of Leinster, King Henry II granted the Bristol Aylward family 7,000 acres of pastureland, including Cheekpoint and its surrounds. The Aylward family held the area for more than half a millennium until the 'War of the Three Kingdoms', when they refused to renounce Catholicism. Oliver Cromwell invaded with his New Model Army in 1649 and summarily dispossessed the family, giving the estate to Captain William Bolton, one of his serving officers.




Of the Boltons, it was Cornelius Bolton (1751–1829) who would almost singularly shape the Cheekpoint that we know today. He inherited the Faithlegg Estate from his father in 1779 and immediately showed himself to be a progressive landlord with a keen interest in developing the estate and helping his tenants. He built the impressive Faithlegg House, with its extensive surrounding grounds, in 1783. Around 1800 he established a cotton mill in Cheekpoint, as well as factories to make hosiery and ropes. He also built the limekilns just east of the green to make the lime used to whitewash cottages and ‘sweeten’ the land.




Sleater’s 1806 Topography of Ireland noted: "Mr Cornelius Bolton lives very retired in the country and has employed a considerable part of his fortune in building a large village where he has established several important manufactures, particularly looms. The industry which he encourages in his colony renders it probable that his expense will be repaid him, and that it will become an object of utility to the public and of profit to him although suggested by motives of humanity. One of the most important fruits of Mr Bolton’s then described "spirited exertions", was the establishment of the packet station from England at Cheekpoint. This was the station, or terminus, at which the mail and passengers arrived from Milford Haven, in Wales, for southern Ireland, and it provided Cheekpoint with the anchor tenant business from which it could become a very prosperous village. To capitalise on the trade, Bolton built Cheekpoint pier.




Sleater continues: "Mr Bolton spared neither trouble nor expense in making it a suitable landing place for the passengers on the packets to and from England... Bolton [as the area was renamed], formerly called Cheekpoint, cotton factory and hosiery, [was] established by Mr Bolton. A most commodious Inn for passengers in the packets to and from Milford Haven in Pembrokershire." Clearly, the Boltons had transformed the area to such an extent that the name Cheekpoint had, at this stage, ceased to be used and it had instead taken on the name Bolton or Bolton Inn.




However, the clouds of doom were to come almost in one fell swoop during 1814. The upper reaches of the Waterford estuary had presented some difficulty for sailing vessels, and so the British Government decided to move the packet station to the then much more accessible pier at Dunmore East. Sleater mentions this at his time of writing "…the diversion of these packets [from England] from Cheekpoint to Dunmore East would be a serious loss to the proprietor of Cheekpoint who had expended a considerable sum of money on hotels and other accommodations unless Parliament should take this loss into consideration."




Despite Bolton's investment, on July 1, 1818, the mail packet station was moved to Dunmore East. When the shipping and passenger business diverted, the village’s enterprises all quickly failed and Cornelius Bolton sadly went bankrupt in 1819. In subsequent years the Dunmore East harbour silted and it too was to be made obsolete by the arrival of steam, which made the River Suir more easily navigable by packet ships. The packet station was subsequently transferred directly to Waterford and the Dunmore packet station was likewise abandoned.




So, Cheekpoint’s industrial aspiration fell into terminal decline and the harbour continued as a small fishery harbour into the 19th and 20th centuries. The Green, above the harbour, was then a hub for the comings and goings of fishermen hauling out and repairing boats and nets. But this was vastly reduced during the 20th century, when the salmon and eel fishery was brought to a close for conservation reasons. While this was happening, Cheekpoint Bar was steadily encroaching upon the fairway, increasingly obstructing large vessels travelling to the Port of Waterford. In a bid to divert the bar, in 1995 a series of 200-metre-long groins were built out into the river to the west of Cheekpoint Harbour. An unfortunate consequence of these was the silting of Cheekpoint Harbour, making it suitable only for small craft able to take to the bottom.




Today Cheekpoint is a pleasant little fishing village. It offers views of the rivers and the 650-metre Barrow Bridge, which was in its time the longest rail bridge in the British Isles. Save for the outward vista of the industrial complex that is Great Island Power Station, it is an exceedingly beautiful village.




Above the village, the 150-metre-high Minaun Hill (Gaelic for mountain meadow by a river) is still clothed in the Malting Woods, planted by Cornelius Bolton. It provides walkers with wonderful panoramas over the Suir estuary and nearby Faithlegg Golf Club. The Suir Inn, by the harbour, is still trading, largely within the same building that was built by the Bolton family. Likewise, his Faithlegg House is in pristine condition and now a hotel and golf resort.




From a boating perspective, this is an excellent place to stop off for lunch in a nice relaxed atmosphere. Visitors can enjoy several beautiful walks detailed on a public notice board immediately above the green. The pub serves excellent food, and there are some small provision shops within walking distance at Cheekpoint.

What facilities are available?

Power and water on the pontoon but no showers. There is a good pub and small shop at Cheekpoint. Waterford city is a taxi ride from here and Waterford Airport is within 15km, which hosted regular flights to the UK and Continent prior to the collapse of VLM Airlines in June 2017. However, the airport (also Ireland's coastguard base) is extending its runway with a view to bringing on future services. Dublin Airport, approximately 200km (2 hours’ drive), and Cork Airport, approximately 150km (also 2 hours’ drive), serve as alternatives.

Any security concerns?

Never an issue known to have occurred at this location.

With thanks to:

John Carroll, Ballyhack, County Wexford, Ireland.