The Chain Bridge is a footbridge over the River Dee at Berwyn,

Llangollen Llangollen () is a town and community, situated on the River Dee, in Denbighshire, Wales. Its riverside location forms the edge of the Berwyn range, and the Dee Valley section of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Bea ...

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnew ...

north Wales North Wales ( cy, Gogledd Cymru) is a region of Wales, encompassing its northernmost areas. It borders Mid Wales to the south, England to the east, and the Irish Sea to the north and west. The area is highly mountainous and rural, with Snowdonia N ...

. Is owned by Llangollen Town Council and a pathway from Berwyn railway station, now part of the

Llangollen Railway The Llangollen Railway () is a volunteer-run heritage railway in Denbighshire, North Wales, which operates between Llangollen and Corwen. The standard gauge line, which is long, runs on part of the former Ruabon – Barmouth GWR route that ...

, leads under a subway and down to the bridge and to the Chain Bridge Hotel on the other side. The current bridge is the third such bridge, and was built by

Sir Henry Beyer Robertson Sir Henry Beyer Robertson (4 May 1862 – 2 June 1948) was a British industrialist. He was the son of Henry Robertson, of Palé Hall, Llandderfel. Born in Shrewsbury, he was the son of Henry Robertson (11 June 1816 – 22 March 1888) and Elizabet ...

, following the destruction of the previous second chain bridge during severe flooding.

First bridge

The first chain bridge was built by Exuperius Pickering in order to transport coal, lime, stone, etc from the

Shropshire Union Canal The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union (SU) system and lie partially in Wales. The canal lies in ...

, (

Llangollen Canal The Llangollen Canal ( cy, Camlas Llangollen) is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshir ...

) across the Dee to

Telford Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in the same direction. With an estim ...

's recently completed London to Holyhead road. The bridge allowed Pickering to bypass the Llangollen toll bridge further downstream, and transport coal from his mines near Acrefair up the canal and onwards to Corwen. Permission to build it was granted in 1814 and it was completed by 1818, making it one of the first chain bridges in the world.

Second bridge

The second bridge was built by railway engineer and industrialist

Henry Robertson Henry Robertson (11 June 1816 – 22 March 1888) was a Scottish mining engineer and prolific railway builder, industrialist and Liberal Party politician. He was head of Brymbo Steelworks, Wrexham. He was co-founder of Beyer-Peacock, with Char ...

in 1876 using the existing chains of the first bridge.

Third bridge

Henry Robertson's son, Sir Henry Beyer Robertson was the head of Brymbo steel works, near Wrexham, in 1929, and a director of the Great Western Railway. He owned the nearby

Llantysilio Hall Llantysilio Hall is a Grade II* listed building, listed country house in Llantysilio, near Llangollen in Denbighshire. It is on the bank of the River Dee and adjacent to the historic Horseshoe Falls (Wales), Horseshoe Falls, the source of the Lla ...

estate, which had been bequeathed to him by the German-born locomotive engineer,

Charles Beyer Charles Frederick Beyer (an anglicised form of his original German name Carl Friedrich Beyer) (14 May 1813 – 2 June 1876) was a celebrated German-British locomotive designer and builder, and co-founder of the Institution of Mechanical Engineer ...

(Beyer was his godfather and had no children of his own). His father Henry Robertson provided loan funding to help found locomotive builder

Beyer, Peacock & Company Beyer, Peacock and Company was an English railway locomotive manufacturer with a factory in Openshaw, Manchester. Founded by Charles Beyer, Richard Peacock and Henry Robertson, it traded from 1854 until 1966. The company exported locomotives ...

, at Gorton Foundry,

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

(then-largest locomotive works in the country). The chain bridge was rebuilt as a suspension footbridge reusing some of the existing chains. In 2015 its complete restoration after years of neglect was completed and it is a major tourist attraction.

References

{{Reflist Pedestrian bridges in Wales Chain bridges Llangollen