WALES TRANSPORT

BRIDGES

PONTCYSYLLTE AQUEDUCT

• Pontcysyllte means 'the bridge that connects'.
  There are 18 piers 126ft high, and 19 arches each with a 45ft span.
  To keep the aqueduct as light as possible, the slender masonry piers are partly hollow and taper at their summit.
  The mortar was made of oxen blood, lime and water. Kind of like treacle toffee.
  The aqueduct holds 1.5 million litres of water and takes two hours to drain.
  The structure is 1,007ft long, with the River Dee running beneath it.
  The work was undertaken by Thomas Telford and supervised by the more experienced canal engineer William Jessop.
  The first stone was laid in July 1795. It was completed in 1805 using local stone.
  This is the largest aqueduct in Britain. It's fed by water from the Horseshoe Falls near Llangollen.
  The water runs through an iron trough that measures 11ft 10ins wide and 5ft 3ins deep.

BRITANNIA BRIDGE

Is a bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. It was originally designed and built by Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans for carrying rail traffic. Following a fire in 1970 it was rebuilt as a two-tier steel truss arch bridge, carrying both road and rail traffic.

MENAI SUSPENSION BRIDGE

Is a suspension bridge between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. Designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1826, it was the first modern suspension bridge in the world.

SEVERN BRIDGE

Is a motorway suspension bridge spanning the River Severn and River Wye between Aust, South Gloucestershire (just north of Bristol) in England, and Chepstow, Monmouthshire in South Wales, via Beachley, Gloucestershire, a peninsula between the two rivers. It is the original Severn road crossing between England and Wales and took three and half years to construct at a cost of £8 million. It replaced the Aust ferry.