In order to avoid any potential charges that patriotic pride has outrun objective assessment I don’t normally review sites from UK! But with Pontcysyllte up for nomination this year I will break the rule. In any case it is from Wales, whose “turn” has come round again within the UK “rota” for nomination – rather than from my own country England. This means that most of you non-English speakers will find its name as difficult to pronounce as I do. This is the approximate way to do it apparently - “pont-kuss-uth-tay”.

We have been there a few times over the years. The Llangollen Canal, which is carried 38 metres over the valley of the river Dee by the aqueduct, passes through scenery which, in World or even European terms could best be described as “pleasant” in an understated rural way. If it wasn’t in Wales I would say it was quite “English” in character – indeed the modern “border” is only 5 kms away and the historic boundary of Offa’s Dyke is even less. The Dee still has a fair way to go upstream before it reaches the “real” Welsh mountains – though even these of course strain to reach 3000ft! But the spectacular crossing of the aqueduct which is available both by boat and on foot (photo) and the quiet delights of the Vale of Llangollen make this stretch one of the most popular stretches of canal in UK. Interestingly the extension of the canal up to Llangollen was mainly conceived of as a “feeder” to bring water to the main canal from the man-made “Horseshoe Falls” (at c3ft high a potentially grave disappointment to anyone expecting rather more of a waterfall!) rather than for its transportation merits.

With the technology of 1805, the valley of the Dee provided a significant engineering challenge for those building a canal to link the Mersey area to the Midlands - so in stepped Thomas Telford with this spectacular cast iron trough perched on sandstone pillars. But this isn’t the first time that UK has nominated a work by Thomas Telford for WH status. He is an early British engineering “hero” and, in 1988, his Menai and Conwy Suspension bridges (both dating to 1826) were proposed. However, the Bureau (it never reached the full WHC) concluded that “While noting the importance of Menai Bridge for the heritage of the United Kingdom, the Bureau felt that it did not meet with the criteria of authenticity set up by the Convention. As far as Conwy Bridge is concerned, the Bureau considered that it would constitute a complement of great interest to Conwy Castle, inscribed in 1986 as one of The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward. The Bureau considered that the authorities of the United Kingdom might perhaps wish to propose an extension of this property, so as to include the suspension bridge.” The logic for these conclusions seems strange. The authenticity issue around the Menai bridge might relate to the fact that in 1893 its wooden deck and in 1938 its wrought iron suspension cables were each changed to steel versions (though even "Iron bridge" was given steel road plates - albeit after its inscription). But quite why the 19th century Conwy bridge might suitably be linked in a single inscription to a number of 13th century castles escapes me!

I don’t believe that Pontcysyllte presents authenticity issues but whether it is strong enough in OUV by itself is another matter. I have seen reference to work carried out by the local council in 2005 which “concluded that the bid for WH status would be stronger if the whole of the heavily engineered section of canal from its beginning at Horseshoe Falls (at) Llantisilio right through to just east of the Chirk aqueduct were included”. And that is what has been done including another aqueduct together with the “normal range” of engineering features, wharves and cottages. Will that be enough – there are plenty of earlier canal-related sites already inscribed in UK? Despite these inclusions the Pontcysyllte nomination remains primarily a “single item” structure and the sorts of inscribed sites I look to as comparators include the Vizcaya Bridge and the 4 Lifts - if they demonstrate adequate OUV then doesn’t Pontcysyllte? The former scores highly as being the “first” such bridge and is regarded as having maintained enough authenticity despite some quite significant changes (Don’t be jealous Menai Bridge!). The latter didn’t claim to be the first of its type (Anderton in UK was) but was scored highly on its “ensemble”. Neither engineering concept exactly “took off” around the world in terms of being widely copied so their “universal value” could be questioned. The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct wasn’t the first with a cast iron trough (Telford had developed a prototype at Longden-on-Tern in 1796 - now unused) but could claim primacy as a working concept although the similar Chirk aqueduct (also within this site) was actually completed first. However its completion in 1805 was at the very end of the canal building era. Telford himself spent most of his efforts on road building (he was however involved with the Avon aqueduct in Scotland), and the railway age was only 20 years away. The use of Cast iron for bridges etc had been demonstrated as early as 1781 at Ironbridge – is Pontcysyllte anything other than a spectacular development of this already inscribed initial “revolution”? Even the draft Nomination file claims no more than that “Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was part of a sequence of innovations and developments that led to the general acceptance of cast iron and then steel as ubiquitous construction materials and enabled ever greater engineering achievements around the World”. Hmmm…. well the system requires that grand claims be made! My view would be that Pontcysyllte is certainly a spectacular structure which captures the optimistic feeling of the early Industrial Revolution that “anything is possible” and as such is no less worthwhile than the other 2 comparators above. Yet, at the same time, apart from its cast iron frame, has it moved technology that much further forward than the Pont du Gard? I hope it gets inscribed but this does seem to be the era of Transnational Serial Sites and Cultural Landscapes rather than of single structures so it might just not be “big” enough in concept.