Local History of South Wales & Llanhilleth Miners' Institute: Pontypridd's Iconic Bridge

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Pontypridd's Iconic Bridge

Pontypridd bridge (with colour co-ordinated signs and vehicles.)

William Edwards was aged 27 when he was given the task of building a three-arch bridge over the river Taff at the town now known as Pontypridd in Glamorgan. He had never built a bridge before, but, self-taught, he had a good reputation as a stone mason and builder. He had honed his stone building skills by studying the local castle at Caerphilly, where the walls had stood for five hundred years.

This first attempt was washed away when the river flooded the following winter. His contract was that he would build a bridge that would last at least seven years, so he built a second and stronger bridge. He sunk wooden piles into the river and built the bridge using wooden shuttering, but it was again washed away. His third attempt was built as a single span, the same proportions as the existing bridge, but without the holes on the sides. This time, due to the weight of the stonework sides, when the wooden supports were removed, the bridge again collapsed.

The bridge you can stand on today was William's fourth attempt and was completed in 1756.

He built a structure with three holes at each end, not for water to pass through, but merely to reduce the weight of the stonework abutments. This bridge 250 years later has become iconic, appearing on many photographs and TV programmes.

The bridge first gained fame when an article appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of 1764 claiming this 140ft span bridge was the longest single span in the world being 45 ft longer than the celebrated Rialto Bridge in Venice. This put Pontypridd, or Newbridge as it was previously known, firmly on the
map of the engineering world.