The 10 best bridges
From a waterway through the sky to a Persian teahouse and sluice, our architecture critic picks his favourites
- 9 / 10
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Wales
1805
To take a waterway through the sky is the stuff of dreams but Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct intends nothing more than to take a transport route, the Llangollen Canal, from A to B, with cast-iron troughs supported on masonry piers. Like old London Bridge, it is an example of the inadvertent surrealism of pragmatic decisions. To travel over it in a narrowboat is, however, sublime – on the one hand the serenity of waterborne transport and of the surrounding scenery, on the other hand the pure vertigo engendered by the sheer drops on either side of the narrow channel.Photograph: Paul Thompson Images/Alamy
1805
To take a waterway through the sky is the stuff of dreams but Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct intends nothing more than to take a transport route, the Llangollen Canal, from A to B, with cast-iron troughs supported on masonry piers. Like old London Bridge, it is an example of the inadvertent surrealism of pragmatic decisions. To travel over it in a narrowboat is, however, sublime – on the one hand the serenity of waterborne transport and of the surrounding scenery, on the other hand the pure vertigo engendered by the sheer drops on either side of the narrow channel.Photograph: Paul Thompson Images/Alamy
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