This week saw the 150th Anniversary of the Barmouth Bridge. The town council were hosting a weekend of activities and events to celebrate the anniversary with the highlight being a themed laser and firework extravaganza centred on the harbour and bridge. The Machynlleth firework display and lantern parade, which we’ve being going to for the past few years, isn’t on this year. We decided therefore that the Barmouth Bridge fireworks would make a welcome change.<\/p>\n
We had originally planned to spend the day there Saturday, camp over\u00a0in the campervan and then head to North Wales for a kayak time trial on Sunday. Plans changed though and I decided to ride in the Aberystwyth Cyclocross on Sunday instead so we headed up just for the day. We did think of going on the train but the last train out of Barmouth was at 9:45pm. We weren’t sure what time we would be finished so didn’t want to risk rushing only to miss it, or having to wait around for hours to catch it. We took the car instead. Anna popped into work on Saturday morning and I went for a nice little cyclocross ride with Richie, so we headed off around 1pm. Part way there we thought about parking up on the Fairbourne side of the estuary and walking across the bridge itself. We changed our mind at the last minute as we weren’t sure how easy it would be to walk back across the bridge later at night once the fireworks had finished. We therefore took a detour into Penmaenpool and across the Penmaenpool Toll Bridge. This little bridge across the Mawddach is a mere 134 years old – A baby in comparison to the Barmouth Bridge!<\/p>\n
The Barmouth Bridge, also known as Barmouth Viaduct is a truly outstanding example of 19th century engineering. It\u00a0is a single-track, largely wooden railway viaduct that carries the Cambrian Coast Railway across the River Mawddach estuary. It sits between Morfa Mawddach and Barmouth\u00a0and caters for rail, foot and cycle traffic.<\/p>\n
The bridge opened in 1867, and originally included a drawbridge section at its north end for tall ships to pass. This was later replaced by the current swing bridge section. In 1980, woodworm threatened the safety of the bridge, which needed major repairs to avoid closure. Tolls were collected for foot and cycle traffic until 2013.<\/p>\n
Thanks to lasers projected onto the cliffs behind Barmouth we discovered that the bridge is a Grade II* listed structure, is the longest wooden bridge in Wales and is the longest timber viaduct still in regular use in Britain. Barmouth Bridge provides a platform to enable stunning views from the viaduct itself while at the same time being an integral part of the beautiful scene framed by the Cader Idris mountain range and underlined by the Mawddach Estuary.<\/p>\n
Once in Barmouth, we parked\u00a0in the main car park and I set off for a walk around Barmouth looking for a suitable shop from which to buy a bar of chocolate so that I could get some change for the pay and display. This took longer than it should have but once the ticket was\u00a0in the car window we set off to explore.<\/p>\n
First stop was the leisure centre were there was a model railway exhibition. My parents had wanted to join us for the weekend and my Dad would have liked to see the model railway exhibition, but they were unable to make it. We therefore went into the exhibition ready to take lots of photos for him to see. It’s probably a good job that he\u00a0didn’t come all the way to see it though as there wasn’t much to see. There was a group of people building a suspension bridge in one corner of the hall.<\/p>\n
![\"Suspension](\"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Suspension-Bridge.jpg\")
<\/a>