The stunning Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is part of the 11 miles of the Llangollen Canal built to serve the industrial revolution-a brilliant canal cruiseAll eleven miles is an outstanding example of industrial and engineering heritage, but the tallest canal aqueduct in the world takes the prize for being awe-inspiring. The rest of the embankments, tunnels, viaducts, aqueducts and 31 other listed structures are also amazing. Going over it in any boat is an experience.
Is this how to pronounce Pontcysyllte? It is easier to canoe over the world’s highest canal aqueduct. Do tell.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is amazing. It is the tallest canal aqueduct in the world, and it is hard to believe how thin the steel sides appear, but the water is only four feet deep, which is the secret to canal building. The weight of water is only that which is above it, the deeper you go, the higher the pressure.
It has been part of the Shropshire Union Canal system, co-owned by the railway that runs parallel and feeds drinking water to the reservoir. The Llangollen Canal leaves the Shropshire Union Canal just north of Nantwich in rural Cheshire is 41 miles long and takes 3 days to cruise one way. Using locks, it climbs through Shropshire countryside to cross the border into Wales near Llangollen and the Pontcysyllte Viaduct which spans the River Dee.
From the height of the viaduct, the white water running under it, the countryside of Llangollen can be seen. The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the “Shroppie”, was an important conduit for many industries and is an amazing sixty-mile, four-day cruise to add onto any cruise ending at Liverpool. The tub boat canal runs from the River Mersey at Ellesmere Port down through some of the most beautiful and underpopulated areas of England to the edge of urban Wolverhampton where the main Cadbury factory is.
The canal, completed in 1792, was built to move coal, ore and limestone to the industrial region of east Shropshire, England. But its strategic position, along with the Birmingham West Suburban Railway which began to open in 1876 and ran parallel, encouraged George and Richard Cadbury to move their initial chocolate interest from Birmingham city centre to the Bournbrook Estate, four miles from the city. Ellesmere Port near Liverpool dock was once the UK’s largest inland waterway dock complex, and a major transhipment point for goods traveling anywhere on the canal network, including cocoa beans. The story, the canal, and the railway are a fun four-day summer canal cruise. It is the prettiest canal in Great Britain and sports one of three Cadbury factories at Chirk on the Wales-England border. There they process the raw cocoa bean. It is then shipped to the appropriate Cadbury factory. Cocoa powder and drinking chocolate is also manufactured at Chirk.
As for pronouncing Pontcysyllte, how close was I?
The last canal cruise we did was in the champagne region.
