The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct forms part of the Llangollen canal and spans the River Dee valley between the villages of Trevor and Froncysyltte. It is situated 4 miles south West of Llangollen and 3 miles North of Chirk where there is another similar aqueduct.
It was built by Thomas Telford and William Jessop and was completed in 1805 at a cost of £47,000.In 2009 it became a World Heritage Site.
It is 1007 feet long, 11 feet wide and at its highest is 126 feet.
The Llangollen is one of the most popular canals with boaters and also walkers, cyclists and coach tours so the basin at the North end can get crowded (as well as the aqueduct itself. It can also be quite windy on top especially in the middle, so you may need your lead boots on a rough day.
It is not pronounced as it is spelt in English being more like Pontkersulty.
Here is a slideshow of my photos taken on a day of variable and sometimes quite dramatic cloud (and hence fierce gusts of wind!). It takes you across the aqueduct from South to North.
The visualisation below of how the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was constructed has been completed by See3D for the Royal Commision on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. My thanks to vimeo.com for the embedded code to enable the showing below – fascinating and very clever by Thomas Telford and William Jessop.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Visualisation – See3D from See3D Animation on Vimeo
Below are two Google Earth maps of the area.
View Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in a larger map
View Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in a larger map
