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An amble with a pub…on the Llangollen Canal

ON A day out at the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, you can snatch lunch and a pint in the pub, but nothing is going to distract you from the real point of coming here. The aqueduct is the showpiece of Britain’s inland waterways. A World Heritage site. A marvel of engineering and a jaw-dropping piece of living history. Sightseers arrive wide-eyed and leave humbled.

The Llangollen Canal ambles 46 miles, crossing the scenic north-east corner of Wales, yet once carried industrial materials of coal, limestone, clay and ironstone on their way to the Midlands. It was built by William Jessop and Thomas Telford over 200 years ago, climbing the contours of the landscape through locks and tunnels.

When the Dee Valley got in the way, ordinary mortals would have admitted defeat, but Thomas Telford had his own ideas. He decided to make the canal fly through the air, 127 feet above the river valley.

The Pontcysyllte is often described as a bath-tub carrying narrowboats in the sky.

Spanning 1007 feet, 19 arches (and fresh air) have held up the cast-iron trough since the aqueduct first opened in 1805. The piers remain as they were when first built, unnervingly still standing with masonry joints fixed by a concoction of lime and ox blood.

And the ironwork of the canal trough is sealed by a quirky potion of Welsh flannel and lead dunked in boiling sugar.

Narrowboats cross in single file with only a slither of space starboard or portside, and pale-faced drops that haven’t been spoiled by safety railings. There’s a slim towpath, hugging the water with a sheer drop to the one side. The towpath was originally for horses pulling narrowboats, and if you look closely at the railings you can see the grooves made by repeated rubbing of ropes.

Nowadays, the path boldly asks visitors on foot if they are brave enough to cross. Many, quivering, will say “yes!” and many resign at the edge. For the brave it’s an unrivalled experience, walking high with swallows and stocky dreams of the great industrialists of a bygone era.

The nearest pub is a good place to sit and chat about the Pontcysyllte (it’s probably best not to try pronouncing Pontcysyllte in public, until the pub has oiled your tongue). The aptly named Telford Inn is situated in Trevor Basin, only a few hundred yards away. The pub building was previously known as Scotch Hall and is believed to have been built at the same time as the canal by the Ellesmere Canal Company (probably for the supervising engineer working on the aqueduct).

The pub overlooks the basin and has seating outside to make the best of its waterside position. In summer it reliably gets packed and the outside seating area becomes sardine-full.

The Telford Inn might not necessarily win our vote for number one best pub on the canals, but if it’s about location, this pub is definitely prize-worthy. You’ll go away well-fed, well-watered, and raving about the Ponty.

Words: PHILLIPPA GREENWOOD
Photography: MARTINE O’CALLAGHAN