Britain’s highest aqueduct
Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is the centrepiece of a world heritage site that crosses three counties and two countries. They call it “the river that runs in the sky”, and there is a rough magic to standing halfway across, looking down on the tumbling River Dee, source of the slow-moving flow at your heels, water Telford drew from Horseshoe Falls for his impossible project. Rather than a chain of locks cut across the valley, his iron trough spans it, joints sealed with red Welsh flannel dipped in boiling sugar. Opened in 1805, it is the highest, longest aqueduct in Britain.…
Fiona Collins
