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Updated: May 18, 2025
Trimmer had previously, in 1831, detected the signs of a great submergence in Wales in the Post-pliocene period. He had observed stratified drift, from which he obtained about a dozen species of marine shells, near the summit of Moel Tryfaen, a hill 1400 feet high, on the south side of the Menai Straits.
As the time was approaching for giving evidence before Parliament on the subject, it was necessary for him to settle some definite plan for submission to the committee. “My late revered father,” says he, “having always taken a deep interest in the various proposals which had been considered for carrying a railway across the Menai Straits, requested me to explain fully to him the views which led me to suggest the use of a tube, and also the nature of the calculations I had made in reference to it.
Our track was from two to three miles from the shore, in 19 and 22 fathoms, fine white sand; a heavy surf washing the beach. South-east of the Menai Hills the country appeared much broken, with high table ranges of from 4 to 700 feet.
Then as I looked towards the sea I thought I saw the fleet of Gryffith Ab Cynan steering from Ireland to Aber Menai, Gryffith, the son of a fugitive king, born in Ireland, in the Commot of Columbcille, Gryffith the frequently baffled, the often victorious; once a manacled prisoner sweating in the sun, in the market-place of Chester, eventually king of North Wales; Gryffith, who "though he loved well the trumpet's clang loved the sound of the harp better"; who led on his warriors to twenty-four battles, and presided over the composition of the twenty-four measures of Cambrian song.
Without them, the shepherd-boy might remain an ignorant, unprogressive shepherd all his life long, even his undeniable native energy using itself up on nothing better than a wattled hurdle or a thatched roof; with them, the path is open before him which led Tam Telford at last to the Menai Bridge and Westminster Abbey.
Katharine's Docks in London, or to the wide quays of Dundee and those of Aberdeen; whether we sail beneath the Menai suspension bridge at Bangor, or drive over the lofty arches that rise sheer from the precipitous river gorge at Cartland, we meet everywhere the lasting traces of that inventive and ingenious brain.
The tubes were placed on a series of rollers and iron balls, and it was afterwards found that in the hottest part of summer they were twelve inches longer than in winter a difference which, if not provided for, would have caused the destruction of the towers by a constant and irresistible pull and thrust! The Menai Bridge was begun in 1846 and opened for traffic in March 1850.
The ferrymen of the Menai were at their stations before daybreak, taking a double allowance of rum and cwrw to strengthen them for the fatigues of the day.
Thereupon Llewelyn returned to Snowdon, where he was joined by the homeless David. Meanwhile Tany, then master of Anglesey, opened up communications with the coast of Arvon by a bridge of boats over the Menai Straits. Winter was already at hand when Llewelyn and his brother were at last shut up amidst the fastnesses of Snowdon. Late in October Archbishop Peckham appeared on the scene.
In those days the tubular bridge had not yet been thought of; but the beautiful suspension bridge at Menai was already in existence, and was the most remarkable bridge then existing in the world. I was more struck by the beauty of the structure than by its costliness or size; the journal says, "It is indeed wonderfully beautiful."
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