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Bridge link detail.


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Thanks chaps.

This is Thomas Telford's Menai bridge, he started building this in 1819, two years before the death of Napoleon Bonaparte! It is still in use.

 

Here is a long shot, which illustrates the height of his masterpiece, Telford had to ensure that there was enough headroom on the high-water springs for a sailing ship with 100 foot masts to pass clear underneath.

 

There is a savage tidal race through the straight, some while back we arrived at the wrong time and, despite dropping sails, we were moving backwards over the ground with the engine on full whack.

 

Telford's story is worth a read if you are of an engineering persuasion. :)

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Pete . . . i did not realize that your first photo was the "cable" ! ! !

 

i did read the wikipedia summary of his life . . . . definitely an engineer who worked his way up the technical ropes, starting as a stonemason (could you imagine stonemasonary being a required course for engineers today ? ?)

 

anyway . . . from wikipedia, about the "cable" . . . the crossing of the Menai Strait was the most formidable challenge, overcome by the Menai Suspension Bridge (1819–1826). Spanning 580 feet (180 m), this was the longest suspension bridge of the time. Unlike modern suspension bridges, Telford used individually linked 9.5-foot (2.9 m) iron eye bars for the cables.

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Dave and George, thanks for commenting.

 

Another, slightly closer, view here, along with the story of the construction and details of the other bridge across the straits in the link from my reply post.

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/landscape-travel/130516-masterpiece.html#post1377529

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