Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge

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

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“…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.

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

Passing On The Saxon Past: Some Mystifying Fragments

Wirksworth Saxon carvings

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.

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Wirksworth coffin lid

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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.

Wirksworth Saxon coffin lid

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.

Wirksworth St Mary's

St. Mary’s, Wirksworth

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

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

Henllys Woods

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.

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Henlyss Woods 2

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Light

Just About Room For Two

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This seat looks to have been created from driftwood and sea debris, with just enough room for two to huddle. It’s sited on the path through the dunes to Harlech Beach (see previous post). You can just glimpse the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance.

There were also some pretty interesting seats In the garden of Borthwnog Hall (where we were spending a few nights back in October). This next one takes repurposed driftwood to a new level. Perhaps a little spooky? Or made specially for dryads.

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And then there was this more conventional bench in the rock garden. It caught the sun only as it was setting over the mountains above the house:

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And then there was the bench with the Mawddach Estuary view:

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And this was the view, and with plenty of room to perch on the wall:

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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Seating for more than one

Walking Squares #19   The header square also for Becky’s November #WalkingSquares

On the Road In Much Wenlock ~ ‘A Rip Van Winkle Kind Of A Place’

Much Wenlock Sheinton Street towards Holy Trinity Church

Sheinton Street looking towards Holy Trinity Church

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It’s a while since I posted any photos of my home town. These shots are all from the archive, but I had a notion to edit them in sepia tones, along with a touch of over-exposure here and there to accompany  the century-old quotation from Shropshire writer Mary Webb. I mean to say, even with all the cars, it still has that  look. There’s definitely a sense of Winkle time-slippage. This may well have something to do with the fact that this small town has been continuously occupied for  more than a thousand years. And before that, there would have been Romans and Romano-British wandering around the place with the likelihood of a villa/bathhouse on the site of the medieval Wenlock Priory. And before that, itinerant Bronze Age smiths may well have passed through, one of whom lost his stash of arrow and axe heads in the River Severn not far from Wenlock. Or maybe it was a donation for a safe crossing.

Many of the facades you see in the photos have been added on the front of much earlier buildings – this during periods of particular market-town prosperity when there were attempts at gentrification. I say ‘attempts’ because by all accounts even in the late nineteenth century there was a smelly open sewer running through the town. Also the place was regularly doused in limestone dust with every blasting at surrounding quarries. And there would have been some evil smog too from lime burning kilns (this to produce lime for building mortar and fertiliser).

Much Wenlock High Street

Looking down on the High Street

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Much Wenlock The Bullring

The Bull Ring where once  the popular sport of bull baiting took place on fair days and holidays

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Much Wenlock The Square

The Square (looking past the church towards Wilmore and Sheinton Street)  with the Museum on the left (once the Butter Market and then a cinema) and the 16th century Guidhall opposite. The assizes were held on the upper floor, the lock-up down below. These days the town council holds its meetings there.

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Much Wenlock Queen Street

Queen Street and Brook House Farm, one of the last surviving town farms, now ‘done up’ into several desirable residences. I remember it with cattle in the barn.

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Much Wenlock High Street with Reynalds Mansion

The High Street featuring our star timber-framed residence – Reynolds Mansion, a fifteenth century hall with a grand 1682 frontage

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Much Wenlock High Street towards Gaskell Corner

Top of the High Street. This row of stone clad cottages contains some very ancient inner parts.

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Much Wenlock High Street and Wilmore Street with Guildhall

Much Wenlock Sheinton Street towards New Road

Looking down Sheinton Street from the Farrell house

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Much Wenlock lane beside Priory ruins

Downs Lane beside Wenlock Priory

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Related: Wenlock: “A Rip Van Winkle kind of a place”

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: roads

Full Steam Ahead!

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The Talyllyn Railway is a Welsh heritage treasure, once a working line opened in 1865 to haul slate from the quarries of the mid-Wales hinterland to the coast at Tywyn. The narrow gauge line may be only 7 miles long, but you can spend a whole day stopping off at stations en route, exploring Dolgoch Falls, having lunch at the station cafe at Abergynolwyn, or hiking up through the woods to the old Bryn Eglwys quarry.  And not only that, you meet lots of happy volunteer drivers and guards along the way, all of them bursting to fill you in with fascinating railway facts.

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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: trains or tracks