Theosophy Wales, UK:- Pages About Wales.Menai Suspension Bridge / Pont Grog y Borth (North Wales)

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Wales is a Principality within the United Kingdom and has an eastern border with England. The land area is just over 8,000 square miles. Snowdon is the highest mountain at 3,650 feet. The coastline is almost 750 miles long. The population of Wales as at the 2001 census is 2,946,200.

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The Menai

Suspension Bridge/

Pont Grog y Borth

Menai Suspension Bridge/

Pont Grog y Borth

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The Menai Suspension Bridge/Pont Grog y Borth, is a suspension bridge between the island of Anglesey and the North Wales mainland. Designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1826, it is one of the first modern suspension bridges in the world.

Prior to the bridge's completion in 1826 the island had no fixed connection to the mainland and all movement to and from Anglesey was by ferry (or, with difficulty, on foot at low tide). However, the Act of Union 1800 with Ireland increased the need for transport to Ireland, and with Holyhead as one of the principal terminals to Dublin it was decided that a bridge was needed.

Thomas Telford was assigned the task of improving the route from London to Holyhead, and one of the key improvements was his design of the suspension bridge over the Menai Strait between a point near Bangor on the mainland and what was then the village of Porthaethwy which is now also known as Menai Bridge on Anglesey. The design of the bridge had to allow sailing ships 100 ft tall to pass under the deck at high water slack tide.

Construction of the bridge began in 1819 with the towers on either side of the strait. These were constructed from Penmon limestone and were hollow with internal cross-walls.

Then came the sixteen huge chain cables, each made of 935 iron bars that support the 176 metre span. To avoid rusting, each cable was first soaked in linseed oil. The bridge was opened to much fanfare on January 30, 1826, and succeeded in reducing the 36 hour journey time from London to Holyhead by 9 hours.

Damaged by winds in 1839, the road surface needed extensive repair, and in 1893 the entire wooden surface was replaced with a steel deck. Over the years, the 4.5 ton weight limit proved problematic for the increasing freight industry and in 1938 the original iron chains were replaced with steel ones without the need to close the bridge. In 1999 the bridge was again closed for around a month to resurface the road and strengthen the structure, requiring all traffic to cross via the nearby Britannia Bridge.

One Way Traffic

On February 28, 2005 the bridge was promoted to UNESCO as a candidate World Heritage Site, and, coincidentally on the same day one carriageway of the bridge was closed for six months restricting traffic to a single carriageway so that traffic now travelled to the mainland in the morning and to Anglesey in the afternoon.

The bridge was finally re-opened to traffic in both directions on 11 December 2005 after its first major re-painting in 65 years.

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