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Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Europe and North America)

Date of Submission: 21/06/1999
Criteria: (i)(ii)(iv)
Category: Cultural
Submission prepared by:
Dep. For Culture, Media and SportBuildings, Monuments and Sites
State, Province or Region:
Denbighshire, Wales
Coordinates:
W3°10'22" N52°57'62"
Ref.: 1326

Description

Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct is one of the world's most renowned and spectacular achievements of waterways engineering. Built as part of the improvement of transport to provide the arteries of industrialisation, the structure was a pioneer of cast iron construction and was the highest canal aqueduct ever built. As such, it is one of the heroic monuments which symbolise the world's first Industrial Revolution and its transformation of technology.



The aqueduct was built between 1795 and 1805 to carry the Ellesmere Canal over the Dee valley in North Wales. The approaching levels of the canal on either side required a crossing at 38m above the River Dee. An earlier plan to carry the canal lower by incorporating locks on either side of the valley was rejected as impractical in its water consumption, and the decision was taken to build an aqueduct of unprecedented height. The resident surveyor responsible was Thomas Telford, working under William Jessop, the most prolific canal engineer of the period.



The height necessitated the introduction of novel methods to replace the heavy construction of earlier aqueducts which had double skins of masonry and puddled clay fill. The spans were instead made of cast-iron plates bolted together into a trough, with cast-iron arch ribs supporting them from beneath. Altogether, 19 spans were built, comprising an overall length of 313m. The towpath was supported on iron braces above the 3.6m wide trough, allowing water to move freely as boats passed. All the iron members for the aqueduct were cast by William Hazledine, one of the leading iron founders of the Industrial Revolution, at the nearby Plas Kynaston Ironworks, established in order to carry out the contract. The tapering masonry piers were built hollow in their upper sections to reduce their weight.



The embankment to the south is itself one of the largest canal earthworks ever constructed. Three original over-bridges, to the north and south of the aqueduct, are important examples of the composite use of cast-iron and masonry, having shallow segmental masonry arches supported by curved cast-iron ribs. To the north of the aqueduct lies Trevor Basin, where the navigable water feeder from Llangollen meets the terminus of the main line of the Ellesmere Canal as completed. The terminal basin contains a wharf for primitive railways from adjacent coal mines and the Plas Kynaston Ironworks, and there are ancillary buildings including two dry docks, a canal hotel, a former warehouse, and a lengthsman's house.



Boundaries

The Site is defined as a continuous section of the original Ellesmere Canal extending for 1.5km with the aqueduct near its centre. The linear extent of the Site is from the top of the terminal basin at the north to the canal at the village of Froncysyllte in the south, with a further stretch of the Llangollen water feeder as far as the first over-bridge to the west. The Site is bounded by the historical land boundaries of the Ellesmere Canal. These consist of fences along the foot of the embankments at both ends of the aqueduct, walls and fences around the boatyard terminal basin to the north, and fences and hedges on either side of the canal.