Ty hwnt i'r bont cafe was having a trim today,this is near the Inigo Jones bridge at Llanrwst.

Pont Fawr, Llanrwst

A ford crossed the river Conwy in this vicinity long before it was bridged. The original bridge was declared unsafe in 1626 and preparations began for its replacement, funded by the people of Caernarfonshire (west of the river) and Denbighshire (east of the river). In 1634 four Lancashire stonemasons were llanrwst_pont_fawr_watercolourcontracted to build the new bridge. The year 1636 and the royal coat of arms are shown on a plaque on the upstream side of the bridge, which is known as Pont Fawr (“large bridge”).

The workmen who built the bridge inserted the keystones for the central arch upside down. This was not discovered until the opening day, when the arch collapsed! The central arch rises to c.18 metres above the water.

The renowned architect Inigo Jones was professionally associated with the wealthy Wynn family of Llanrwst, and legend has it that he designed Pont Fawr. The pictures of the bridge and Inigo Jones (courtesy of The National Library Wales) were used to illustrate Thomas Pennant’s books about his travels in Wales in the 1770s.

llanrwst_inigo_jonesPennant wrote that two of the arches were extremely beautiful, marking “the hand of the architect”, but the third was inferior, having been rebuilt in 1703. Inigo had changed Ynyr, his real Christian, to Inigo or Ignatius when he went to Italy, according to Pennant.

The bridge features full-height cutwaters (stonework shaped like a ship’s bow). The river is the outlet for rainwater and meltwater from across a large area of Snowdonia including Dyffryn Mymbyr (around Capel Curig), one of the wettest places in Britain. Since the western arch collapsed in 1702 and was rebuilt, the bridge has stood the test of countless floods and the advent of motorised lorries and buses.

The bridge is too narrow for vehicles to pass on it, and its hump limits forward visibility. This explains the local nickname Pont y Rhegi – "bridge of swearing".

llanrwst_pont_fawr_drawingWilliam Peers may have uttered an expletive on a dark night in 1907 when the traction engine he was driving crashed through the wall at the Llanrwst end of the bridge. After crossing the river, he had misjudged the position of the main road. The stoker and two navvies (engaged in building Dolgarrog aluminium works) jumped clear. Mr Peers fell about three metres onto the riverbank. The engine was said to have made a complete rotation in mid air before hitting the riverbed about six metres below the road.