Wales: Chirk and Pontcysyllte Aqueducts

We packed a lot in to our one-day trip to Wales. After leaving Chirk Castle, it was a short drive to Chirk Aqueduct, located just three miles outside the town. Constructed by that master of engineering, Thomas Telford, Chirk Aqueduct was opened in 1801. It has 10 spans of 40 feet each, stands 70 feet high, is 710 feet long, is made of masonry and stone, and carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Ceiriog from Wales to England.

Here it comes, there it goes

Beside it stands a railway viaduct, constructed both later and higher, apparently to suggest railway supremacy. Built between 1846 and 1848, Chirk Viaduct was the work of Scottish engineer Henry Robertson. The 100-foot-high stone structure has ten spans with round arches, and links Liverpool and the Wirral with Shrewsbury and the south. As luck would have it, an English-bound train crossed over while we were there, so I managed to get a photo of the viaduct in use. I imagine the view from the train would be superb.

As you approach these two impressive feats of engineering from Chirk township, you can’t help but wonder at first where the water comes from. In fact, when you’re standing at the viewpoint, the canal emerges almost directly under your feet, from the 460-yard-long Chirk Tunnel, flowing out into a small basin before continuing across the aqueduct.

There is a footpath alongside the water channel on the aqueduct so, of course, we walked across it. Though I’m not particularly fond of heights, it wasn’t too scary. The footpath is quite wide, so you don’t feel like you will fall into the water on one side or need to grasp for dear life onto the hand rail on the other. We walked a bit further along the canal and found a boatman selling traditional painted narrowboat crafts from his boat/shop so did a wee spot of shopping (a mug and a fridge magnet for me, a jug for Sarah), then turned around and walked back across the aqueduct just as some boats were coming over – perfect timing for photos.

England on one side, Wales on the other

The 46-mile-long Llangollen Canal is one of the most popular in Wales for recreational craft as we soon discovered, as more boats were coming through the tunnel when we got back to the other side. It takes the canal boats approximately 12 minutes to sail slowly through Chirk tunnel, which also has a footpath running along next to the water. So, though it was a trifle damp here and there, we walked through the tunnel to the other end and then back along the roadway at the top.

At this stage we realised, from looking at a local signboard and map, that we were not actually at the aqueduct we had particularly come to see so we set off in search of that. Pontcysyllte is Chirk’s big brother, both longer and much higher. Another of Thomas Telford’s constructions, it is 1007 feet long, rises 127 feet over the River Dee, has 18 piers made of local stone, and took 10 years to build, opening in 1805. It was one of the earliest aqueducts to use a cast iron trough, which is 11 feet 10 inches wide and 5 feet 3 inches deep. Fifty million litres of water cross the Pontcysyllte Canal each day to supply drinking water to south Cheshire.

The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was added to the World Heritage List in 2009, as a site of Outstanding Universal Value. It is the highest navigable aqueduct ever built and is recognised internationally as a masterpiece of civil engineering, and it is more than a little scary to walk across. This is partly because its footpath is much narrower than Chirk’s but also it is 30 feet taller and the wind flowing through the valley can reach quite high speeds.

Still, walk across we did! I would have stopped for photos but Sarah is much more afraid of heights than me and was freaking out just a little at the prospect. So, with dogged determination, we walked straight across, eyes looking straight ahead not down. It was mind boggling and heart thumping and knee knivering all at the same time – scary but also exhilarating!

Left, the bridge lifts up so boats can pass. Right, the old bridge at the bottom of the valley.

However, Sarah definitely didn’t want to retrace our steps, and we did want to get photos from down in the valley below so we headed down the road towards a narrow old bridge that crosses the River Dee at the bottom. From there, we had a splendid view of the aqueduct and of boats going across, before walking back up the other side of the valley to the small settlement of Trevor where the car was parked and where there is a small marina.

By this time it was 7pm. We were hot and needing refreshment as our delicious lunch at Chirk Castle seemed but a distant memory. So we enjoyed our dinner – appropriately enough I had a Welsh lamb burger – on the benches outside a pub by the canal side, before heading home, hot and weary but full of the joys of a wonderful day.

Left, the pub where we ate dinner

Wales: Chirk Castle

I spent just one day in Wales during this trip to the UK – some day I will return to explore further. This post describes the first half of our day trip, to visit the amazing Chirk Castle, and the Chirk and Pontcysyllte Aqueducts – more on those two incredible feats of engineering in the next blog.

We set off at 10am and didn’t get home till 9pm so it was a very long but truly splendid, action-packed day. After an hour’s drive, leaving behind the bountiful farmland of the Cheshire Plains for the rolling hills and valleys of north Wales, we arrived in the little town of Chirk and easily found our way to their impressive castle – my only castle visit on this trip but what a cracker!

Chirk is part fortress and part family home. Built between 1295 and 1310 by Roger Mortimer de Chirk, it was originally part of Edward I’s ‘Iron Ring’, a chain of fortresses built across northern Wales to keep the rebellious supporters of Welsh ruler Llewellyn-ap-Graffyd in check. The land was granted to Mortimer for his role in killing Llewellyn and his two young sons. 

Though not particularly tall, Chirk is still a formidable structure, hunkering down on top of a hill, perfectly positioned for defence. What we see today, however, is not what the castle originally looked like, as this illustration from a signboard at the castle clearly shows. The front third of the castle, comprising two drum towers, and the barbican gate on the south side, are now gone. This may well be a reflection of the castle’s history. During the Civil War in 1644, the governor of the castle had his men use stones from the battlements to drive off an attack by parliamentary forces.

During the medieval period Chirk’s fortunes swung between glory and disgrace – five of its owners were executed for treason, and during the Tudor period Chirk Castle was held by the crown, until Elizabeth I gave it to her favourite Robert Dudley. In 1595 Chirk was sold for £5000 (that’s the equivalent of 12 million pounds in today’s money) to Thomas Myddleton, a rich merchant who rose to become Lord Mayor of London. He was the one responsible for converting the castle from fortress to family home, and Chirk remained in the Myddleton family for the next 400 years, until it passed to the National Trust in 2004.

One of the staterooms, with its amazing ceiling

The Long Gallery, left, and the dining room, right

Evidence from its military past and a charming sign in the servant's hall

The castle’s life as a fortress is very apparent, in the crenellated battlements, in the interior displays of coats of arms and old weapons, in the guard tower with its eerie dungeon deep below ground. But the interior also provides ample evidence of the wealth, the status, and the eclectic nature of its various occupants. The staterooms are magnificently appointed, with the intricately decorated ceilings I love so much, with lavish furnishings and tapestries, there's a fabulous 17th-century Long Gallery and a well-stocked library – my neck was craning in all directions to take in the splendour of it all.

And the gardens were equally magnificent, with beautiful rose gardens close to the house, a clipped and shaped yew hedge, long expanses of lawn edged with glorious borders of flowers and shrubs, a small pond with waterlilies, some large old specimen trees, a double Haha (a Hahaha?) overlooking fields of sheep, and a lime tree avenue with a large statue of Hercules as the focal point at the top of the rise.

Hercules, a lead statue that was commissioned by Robert Myddleton in the 1720s, was my particular favourite. He used to stand outside the castle’s main entrance, with a companion figure of Mars, but, poor chap, he was moved to an outlying woody area in the 1770s. And there he languished, away from the public’s gaze, quietly deteriorating until the R.A.F. used one of their helicopters to rescue him in 1983. The National Trust has since restored him and placed him in this prime position in the avenue.

As well as the 5.5 hectares of garden surrounding the castle, its 480-acre grounds also include longer woodland walks and, apparently, a well preserved section of Offa’s Dyke. Unfortunately, we had lots more to see so needed to move on – but, before we left this superb place, we got photos of the very grand, though now mostly disused entrance gates and the very pretty flower-festooned black-and-white gatekeeper’s cottage.

Details of our adventures during the rest of this one-day visit to Wales follow in the next blog.

The gatekeeper's cottage and the entrance gates

A summerhouse in the gardens