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Aqueduct Facts and Figures |
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- Pontcysyllte means 'the bridge that connects'. It created a navigable union between England and Wales, connecting the rivers Severn, Dee and Mersey.
- There are 18 piers 116ft 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.
- The aqueduct holds 1.5 million litres of water and takes two hours to drain.
- And for the non-Welsh speaker, Pontcysyllte is pronounced 'pont-kuh-sih-hl-ter'.
- The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct spans the valley from Trefor to Froncysyllte, beneath it runs the River Dee.
- 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.
- At the centre, it reaches a height of 126 feet from the river bed to the ironwork.
- The water that feeds this canal runs through an iron trough that measures 1007 feet long by 11 feet 10 inches wide by 5 feet 3 inches deep.
- This is the largest aqueduct in Britain. It is fed by water from the Horseshoe Falls near Llangollen.
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Cymraeg
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