A canal walk to a great pub: the Aqueduct Inn, Llangollen, Wales
The barge drifted gently through the sky, 40 meters above the ground. Two men in a canoe followed. They wore life jackets, although parachutes might have been more appropriate.
There is, it is safe to say, nowhere else in the world where you can float your boat so far off the ground as on this stretch of Llangollen Canal, on Thomas Telford's masterpiece, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It is a 307 meter long cast iron trough perched on 18 stone arches spanning the Dee Valley in North Wales, a World Heritage Site which justifies its listing as a true wonder of the industrial revolution.
And there is much more. This walk has many permutations, as well as combinations with the Offa's Dyke path, but I'll assume an eight mile walk, lunch at the pub, then a walk back along the same route. It's so good you'll happily start again.
We start south of the small town of Chirk, where the Llangollen Canal curves in from the east, towards the hills. Park by the canal (there is also a train station at Chirk) and head north along the towpath. You are about to experience a number of engineering marvels and the opening salvo comes immediately with a 216 meter long aqueduct that spans the Ceiriog River and valley.
In 1793 Thomas Telford was a respected architect in Shrewsbury, but his work to join the rivers Severn, Dee and Mersey by canal would catapult him into the super-league of civil engineers, a field he would dominate until which the flamboyant young upstart Brunel eclipses him.
The towpath is the best place to inspect Telford's creation, a giant piece of Victorian plumbing consisting of a cast iron elongated tub large enough for a river boat to be pulled by a horse. 21 meters above the valley. No sooner is that over than you enter the next wonder: Chirk's Tunnel, a 420-meter unlit hole that burrows beneath the hill.
The barge drifted gently through the sky, 40 meters above the ground. Two men in a canoe followed. They wore life jackets, although parachutes might have been more appropriate.
There is, it is safe to say, nowhere else in the world where you can float your boat so far off the ground as on this stretch of Llangollen Canal, on Thomas Telford's masterpiece, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It is a 307 meter long cast iron trough perched on 18 stone arches spanning the Dee Valley in North Wales, a World Heritage Site which justifies its listing as a true wonder of the industrial revolution.
And there is much more. This walk has many permutations, as well as combinations with the Offa's Dyke path, but I'll assume an eight mile walk, lunch at the pub, then a walk back along the same route. It's so good you'll happily start again.
We start south of the small town of Chirk, where the Llangollen Canal curves in from the east, towards the hills. Park by the canal (there is also a train station at Chirk) and head north along the towpath. You are about to experience a number of engineering marvels and the opening salvo comes immediately with a 216 meter long aqueduct that spans the Ceiriog River and valley.
In 1793 Thomas Telford was a respected architect in Shrewsbury, but his work to join the rivers Severn, Dee and Mersey by canal would catapult him into the super-league of civil engineers, a field he would dominate until which the flamboyant young upstart Brunel eclipses him.
The towpath is the best place to inspect Telford's creation, a giant piece of Victorian plumbing consisting of a cast iron elongated tub large enough for a river boat to be pulled by a horse. 21 meters above the valley. No sooner is that over than you enter the next wonder: Chirk's Tunnel, a 420-meter unlit hole that burrows beneath the hill.
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