Menai
Bridge
The
'Gateway to Anglesey' used to enjoy a number of ferry crossings
for farmers and drovers taking their stock to and from the island,
when they used to drive their animals into the sea and island
hop their way to and from the mainland. This all changed however
when Thomas Telford built the first iron suspension bridge of
this kind in the world in 1826. The bridge stands at over a hundred
feet tall, is 376 feet long had 16 iron chains and took nearly
seventeen years to build. The granite was mined locally and no
life was lost during its construction. Rightly it's regarded as
an engineering masterpiece.
The
town itself has an important fair held every October and is also
the home to the Marine Studies Department of Bangor
University - one of the leading departments in this field in the
world. There are a number of antique shops in the town as well
as a working television street-studio.