DescriptionThis bridge, No 48A on the Llangollen Canal is approximately 200m E of the Chain Bridge Hotel and has been listed as a structure of Historic interest by Cadw (Record Number 19,682)).
Minature arched masonry bridge (span approximately 5.2 metres) built over the narrow navigable feeder canal at the head of the Llangollen Canal, not large enough for normal narrowboats at this point and hence without a towing-path going through it. The deck is inclined, rising to the north-west as the canal is cut into the narrow Dee Valley at this point with the north-west side of the canal cut into a fairly deep rock cutting. The riverside towing-path to the south-east is built on the resultant spoil. Designed between the enabling Act for the navigable feeder in 1804 and its completion in 1808 with Thomas Telford as general agent of the Ellesmere Canal Company and Thomas Denson as the resident engineer (Charles Hadfield, 'Canals of the West Midlands', David & Charles 2nd ed. 1969, pages 178-79). A picturesque typical but small example of an eighteenth-century type canal bridge associated with Thomas Telford, an internationally significant innovative engineer (Stephen R. Hughes, 20.03.2007).