Menai Suspension Bridge

When Thomas Telford's bridge opened across the Menai Strait on 30 January 1826, its central span of about 176 metres was longer than any other bridge in the world. Two towers of pale Penmon limestone carry sixteen chains over a fast tidal channel, holding the deck around thirty metres above high water, a height set so that the tall sailing ships of the day could pass beneath under full rig. Seen from the shore or from the water, the slender deck and the long sag of the chains still look astonishingly light for something built in the age of horse-drawn coaches.

The bridge was a response to politics as much as geography. After the union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, traffic between London and Dublin through the port of Holyhead grew quickly, and Telford, the Scottish engineer behind canals, harbours and roads across Britain, was charged with building a modern road to Holyhead. The strait was its hardest obstacle. Ferries were dangerous in the swirling tides, and Anglesey's cattle were driven into the water to swim to the mainland markets. Work began in 1819; the wrought-iron chains were assembled link by link, and the last sections were floated out on a raft and hauled up by teams of men.

The first wooden deck flexed badly in strong winds and was stiffened and later replaced by steel in 1893, and in 1938 the original iron chains were exchanged for steel ones. In 1850 Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge was opened a little way along the strait to carry the railway, and the two crossings have framed the channel ever since. The bridge links Bangor, a small cathedral and university city on the mainland, with the town of Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which took its English name from the crossing, and it appeared on the British one-pound coin in 2005.

Getting there

The bridge stands about 2.4 km from the centre of Bangor, whose station lies on the North Wales Coast Line between Chester and Holyhead. The closest airport in a straight line is the Isle of Man (IOM), across the Irish Sea; the practical gateway is Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LPL), about 89 km away, with the onward journey by road or rail along the North Wales coast.