Pontcysyllte Aqueduct: Walking Across a Cast-Iron Trough 38 Metres in the Air

Thomas Telford designed the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It opened in 1805. It is 307 metres long, carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee on 19 masonry piers, and stands 38 metres above the water in the valley below. It is the longest and highest navigable aqueduct in Britain and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The canal trough is cast iron, 1.7 metres wide. The towpath alongside it has a handrail on the canal side and nothing on the outer side.

Walking across takes about 10 minutes. Looking down from the exposed outer edge at the fields and trees nearly 40 metres below is vertiginous in a way that photographs entirely fail to convey. The path is free. If you’re planning to do it, do it first before anyone in your group talks themselves out of it.

Canal boats pass through the trough; the boat fills the full width. There is nothing between the side of the boat and open air. Several canal hire companies run trips across the aqueduct if you’d prefer to experience it by water rather than on foot.

Getting There

The aqueduct is at Froncysyllte, 5km east of Llangollen on the B5434. There’s a car park at the south end near Trevor Basin. The towpath walk to the northern end of the aqueduct from the car park is about 15 minutes along a flat canal path.

By public transport from Wrexham: buses run to Llangollen, with onward services through Froncysyllte, but the timetable is infrequent enough that driving is considerably easier. The aqueduct is 10 minutes from the A5 and well-signposted.

Llangollen

The town 5km west sits in the Dee Valley with good walking access to the Dee Gorge and the ruins of Dinas Bran castle on the hill above. The International Musical Eisteddfod, a Welsh cultural festival held every July, draws around 50,000 people to a town of 3,000 in its stronger years. Book accommodation months ahead if your visit coincides with it.

The Llangollen Wharf runs horse-drawn narrow-boat trips along the canal (April through October, around £12/person for 45 minutes), entirely sedate and good for children or anyone who prefers to sit.

The Corn Mill on Dee Lane, Llangollen, is a converted watermill with a terrace over the Dee and straightforward pub food at £12-18 per main. Gales Wine Bar and Hotel on Bridge Street has the best rooms in town (from around £90/night) and a serious wine list.

What to Combine

Pontcysyllte alone is a half-day. Valle Crucis Abbey, 2km north of Llangollen (free, 13th-century Cistercian stonework, and quietly atmospheric), plus the canal walk to the aqueduct makes a complete day that covers 1,500 years of Welsh history in a valley that most tourists to North Wales drive past without stopping.