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.

 


 
Produced with support from the EU