Spanning The Straits: Thomas Telford’s Magnificent Menai Suspension Bridge

“…some of the horses are unsettled by the drop…”

Thomas Telford 1826

I’m not one for heroes, but I make an exception for Thomas Telford (1757-1843), the son of a Dumfriesshire shepherd who became one of Britain’s most outstanding engineers, the first President of the Institute of Civil Engineers and the man who left us with many astonishing structures still in daily use. Not the least of his many achievements are Scotland’s 60-mile Caledonian Canal and the magnificent Pontcysyllte Aqueduct whose still working canal crosses the River Dee near Llangollen in Wales.

And then there is the Menai Bridge that bridges the strait between mainland Wales and the island of Anglesey, with arches tall enough to allow ships to pass without lowering their sails. With a span of 580 feet it was, in its day, the longest suspension bridge ever constructed. Work began in 1819 and the bridge was opened to coach traffic in 1826. The project was part of Telford’s major improvements of the road from the Anglesey port Holyhead to London, otherwise known as the A5. One object was to ensure the swift, safe transport of Irish Members of Parliament to Westminster. Before the bridge, they had to risk a perilous ferry crossing between Anglesey and Bangor.

Telford was not only a man of vision in construction terms, but he always looked to the bigger picture, building roads that, though expensive to construct, were well drained and low maintenance, always looking to create integrated transport systems that would bring local and national prosperity. He was fastidious, too, in his project planning, and astute when it came to political lobbying and fund raising. He was also a man who made fast friendships and was a diligent letter writer, and he did much to encourage the young engineers who would succeed him.

In fact he never stopped working. Only death at the age of 77 concluded his prodigious career. There was never time to marry either (though there were near misses) and only in his late years did he bother to buy his London house. Even then he still kept travelling, racketing around in a coach from project to project, the length and breadth of the British Isles. He was certainly a man who knew his own worth, but he was modest too. Here’s a letter he wrote to one of his Menai Bridge contractors, Nye Vaughn, owner of the Castle Iron Works which provided the iron chains.

My Dear Vaughn,

You will be pleased to learn that the bridge at Menai is finished and opened to mail coaches last month. I confess the admiralty demand to hang the road a hundred feet above the sea to allow sailing ships to pass was a daunting requirement. However the bridge is built and, I must say, I am proud of it. It seems I am to be known as the ‘Colossus of Roads’ ** . An odd name don’t you think? Your iron chains were a devil to hang across the straits but they are firm and there is little movement when the coaches pass across although some of the horses are unsettled by the drop. Thank your son for his suggestion to coat the chains in linseed oil to protect them from corrosion. His idea has proved better than the lead paint we planned to use. To be doubly sure we have done both. When he proposed linseed oil I believed he was repaying me for teasing you in the sealing of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. I hope you forgive my jest. Please accept my compliments and thank your foundry men. Tell them we found no flaws in the links we tested. When I am next in need of heavy castings I will call on you.

My very best regards,

Telford

** It was Telford’s close friend and poet Robert Southey who coined this term Colossus of Roads

When we were on Anglesey back in January the bridge had been closed for three months. It was quite an emergency. Some structural upgrading carried out during the war years 1938 and 1941 showed serious signs of failing. Brittle hanging sockets were the problem and “analysis showed there was a credible risk of an unzipping failure of the bridge deck.”

An unzipping suspension bridge of Menai’s scale sounds horrendous. It’s good to know the bridge is now back in business. It opened again at the start of February. All the same, I wonder what Thomas Telford and Nye Vaughn would have had to say about brittle hanging sockets.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Arches, domes and half circles

Passing On The Saxon Past: Some Mystifying Fragments

Here’s a fine thing: Saxon carvings some 1,300 years old, but recycled in the 13th century when Wirksworth’s ancient church was being rebuilt. The curious fragments have been popped into one of the main inside walls, a cobbled assemblage of ram’s head, a wolf (or boar?), a leopard-like creature, a horse, and in their midst, a royal couple (?).

It is thought the carvings came from an early Christian building or Saxon cross. Wirksworth, in Derbyshire’s Peak District (England’s East Midlands) was once part of the great Saxon kingdom of Mercia, whose kings and sub-kings held sway over much of England from CE 600 to 900.

Christianity was established there in the mid 7th century as a condition of a peace treaty between pagan Mercia and neighbouring Christian Northumbria. Northumbrian Princess Elchfrida travelled south into Mercia to marry Peada, son of Penda, the last great pagan king of Mercia. She brought with her an entourage of missionary priests, one of whom, Betti, founded the church at Wirksworth in CE 653.

So could the couple be Elchfrida and Peada? We’ll never know. Though we do know from Bede that the real-life Elchfrida later betrayed Paeda, which led to his death and the reassertion of Mercian supremacy under his brother, King Wulfhere.

The church has another mysterious Saxon treasure, known as The Wirksworth Stone. It is a coffin lid dating to around CE 800, found a thousand years later during building work. The lid covered a large skeleton whose burial position under the floor close to the altar suggests a person of high religious status, an abbot perhaps.

But looking now at these curious works, and pondering, too, on my likely Anglo-Saxon origins, I can’t help but think of the opening line from L.P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

St. Mary’s, Wirksworth

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: statues, sculptures and carvings

Days Of Frost And Sun And More Upended Reflections

This week the weather gods are treating us to hoar frosty nights and chilled, sun-filled days. The wind has dropped too – ideal conditions, then, for watery reflections. So here’s a flipped image of the River Severn, and a mysteriously vivid mirror-world that, in this photo at least, looks more real than reality. Strange how that can happen.

The photo was taken yesterday afternoon on a trip into Shrewsbury, our county town. Here it is restored to uprightness.

And now the upstream view, showing off the Welsh Bridge, the town’s westerly exit. (There is also an English Bridge over the easterly stretch):

The Severn is Britain’s longest river (220 miles). It rises in the mid-Wales mountains and then meanders down England to the Bristol Channel and thence into the Celtic Sea. At Shrewsbury it all but encircles the town centre, a hilltop settlement of ancient Saxon origins and ever a busy centre for trade and manufacturing. The river was once its super highway, woollen cloth and wool being key export commodities from which great fortunes could be made. These days the riverside parks and walks are a precious resort for tranquil pursuits (and reflection) away from nose-to-tail traffic that clog up the mediaeval streets. Interesting the ways things change.

More sun and frost promised tomorrow.

River Of Clouds ~ But Which Way’s Up?

This week Patti at Lens-Artists wants to see shadows and reflections in monochrome. So here’s a cloudy-day view of the Mawddach Estuary in Wales: upright and upside down. Intriguing, isn’t it. It’s making me think of a Rorschach inkblot test.

Lens-Artists: Monochrome shadows and reflections

The Day The Sun Fell Into Henllys Woods And Other Light Shows

It is said that the Druids faced their final battle with the Roman Army on the North Wales island of Anglesey in 60-61 AD. According to Tacitus, things did not end well for them and their sacred oak groves. [See my earlier post Island Of Old Ghosts]. Early on in the invasion of Britain, the island had become a refuge for resisting Celtic warriors, doubtless assuming that the Menai Strait would present an obstacle to the legions. (It didn’t).

But for the Druids – the seer-diviner-lore-keeper-law-makers of the community, I tend to wonder if it wasn’t the island’s more extraordinary characteristics that they drew on. The quality of the light for one, and especially in winter when the sun over sea and strait and mainland mountains creates some mesmerizing effects, even when caught in monochrome.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Light

Over The Dunes At Traeth Llydan

And along the board walk at Harlech:

And through the old boat house gate at Borthwnog Hall: the Mawddach Estuary beyond

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Fences & Gates

Over The Garden Fence ~ News From The Crab Apple Fly-By

Well, haven’t the birds tucked in well over the past few weeks. I have to say, though, I rather begrudge the number of pigeons who’ve come scoffing at our little Evereste tree. But still, the blackbirds have had their fair share too.

Here’s how the tree looked in early October, aglow in late-day light:

And in no time at all it will look like this:

And like this:

And so the gyre of life, loss and renewal endures; never mind the doom-mongers.

Looking Back: The Old Stones Of Din Lligwy

We came here last week, Monday 2nd January 2023. I’d been here before – the north-easterly corner of Ynys Mon (Anglesey) and to this field above the sea, where there are ruins of a Norman chapel (12th century) and a Romano-Celtic settlement of the late 300s AD.

And with all these chronological markers in place, I should perhaps add one more and say that it was probably 60 years since I was last here. Sixty years. Ye gods! How time does fly.

Back then, we were visiting what my mother mistakenly called ‘a stone age village’. It was one of my big holiday excitements whenever we came to Anglesey.

Above and below are the settlement’s two circular houses, inhabited during the later Roman era, but abandoned by 400 AD when the legions departed. So, mummy dear, not a Stone Age village at all, though unknown to me at the time of those childhood visits, there is in fact an impressive Stone Age monument very close by.

As you can see, the stone houses have massively constructed walls, faced inside and out with huge slabs, and the space between packed with rubble. They probably supported conical, timber-framed and thatched roofs. (A reconstruction HERE)

There are also at least 7 rectangular buildings associated with the houses. Two of these contained several smelting hearths and were probably iron-making workshops supplying the local Roman legions with tools and weapons. The whole site was then bounded by a pentagonal wall, well over a metre thick, and entered via a gatehouse. There were also further house remains outside the boundary wall.

To me it has the looks of a secure unit. Perhaps with workshops under direct Roman control. By the 4th century the locals could well have been growing restive; itching to arm themselves. This is just my hypothesis. Other interpretations are that the outer wall was for keeping cattle in, and that the defences were considered ‘light’.

But now a step back in more recent times and the way things were for the Ashford family circa 1960:

And finally a giant’s leap back – some 5, 000 years:

It’s only a short walk from the Romano-Celtic settlement, and barely a stone’s throw behind a field hedge, but here we have a Stone Age cromlech, the burial place of some thirty Neolithic farmers, men, women and children. Among their remains archaeologists also found animal bones, flint tools and pottery.

The hugeness of the capstone is breath-taking. It’s reckoned to weigh 25 tons and, in consequence, it’s also thought that the stone was already in situ at the time of construction (a handy glacial delivery?) and that the tomb builders excavated underneath, wedging it on boulders to create the chamber. The whole was then probably covered with turves and soil, and as with similar monuments that were in use over a period of time, may also have included some kind of ceremonial forecourt. But however it was constructed, it surely took a massively concerted effort.

Our visit over, we turned back to the car. Back to the present. Across the lane from the tomb was the misty view of the Great Orme on the mainland (named by the Vikings during the next invasion phase). Behind us was the small place called Din Lligwy – five millennia of human history documented in stone.

On my personal time-scale, I’d like to say I’ll be back there in another sixty years, but it seems unlikely. Still, you never know…

Lens-Artists: Looking Back This week Sofia sets the challenge.

A Curious Rendition?

Well, it is surprising, isn’t it – to find this Elvis artwork at the head of the grand staircase at Chatsworth House, Chatsworth being one of England’s most prestigious stately homes and the country seat of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Here’s more of the art work. It is pretty surreal, however it comes: whether in the original technicolour or in monochrome. (I’m afraid I omitted to make a note of its creator). But now I discover that the likely reason for its presence is that the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, otherwise known as Debo to her friends, was a huge Elvis Presley fan and had a fondly kept signed photo of him on her wall.

Also when the Duchess died in 2014 at the age of 94, he was to play a big part in her simple funeral service, held in the Chatsworth estate church. She had chosen his recording of ‘How Great Thou Art’ to play her out as she was borne aloft in her woven wicker coffin stranded with ivy and autumnal hawthorn berry sprays. A surprising soundtrack perhaps in rural gentrified Derbyshire.

Debo was the last surviving Mitford sister, a notorious brood of five ‘gels’, several of whom, in pursuit of love, bolted from deemed acceptable aristocratic marriages in order (between them) to embrace the full spectrum of political persuasion. Jessica was a communist; Diana ran off with fascist Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity pursued Hitler; novelist Nancy was a socialist and left her husband for a protracted affair with a French statesman; Pamela left her husband to live with an Italian horsewoman, while Deborah, in true English gentry style, married a future duke and spent her life developing Chatsworth House as a premier visitor attraction, including the pioneering of heritage shopping and the marketing of local produce.

You can find her final accompaniment ‘How Great Thou Art’ on YouTube.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: things musical

The Best Of All Seasons 2022

New Year on Newborough Beach, Anglesey – mainland Wales in the mist

We began and ended 2022 on the island of Anglesey in North Wales. In between there were meanderings to favourite spots in Shropshire and around and about the town of Much Wenlock.So here we have a random selection of a year’s happy moments and things that caught my eye.