Chain Bridge (Berwyn)

Chain Bridge 2015

Chain Bridge 2015

The Henry Robertson Chain Bridge Built 1870

The Chain Bridge is a footbridge over the river Dee at Berwyn, Llangollen, Denbighshire, North Wales.

It is jointly owned by Llangollen Town Council and Llantysilio Community Council, the bridge linking the two communities. A pathway from Berwyn railway station, now part of the Llangollen Railway, 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, following the destruction of the previous second chain bridge during severe flooding.

First bridge

The first chain bridge was built by Exiperus Pickering in 1813 in order to transport coal, lime, stone, etc from the Shropshire Union Canal, (Llangollen Canal) across the Dee to Telford'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. It was one of the first chain bridges in the world.

Second bridge

The second bridge was built by railway engineer and industrialist Henry Robertson 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 estate, which had been bequeathed to him by the German-born locomotive engineer, Charles Beyer (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 and Company, at Gorton Foundry, Manchester (then-largest locomotive works in the country).

The chain bridge was rebuilt as a suspension footbridge reusing some of the existing chains. It has been recently completely restored after years of neglect and is a major tourist attraction.