It appears that the Elan Valley Trust are struggling to decide what to do about the bridges that provide and have provided access into Elan Village. There are two by the entrance to the Elan Valley Visitor Centre. The one in use is a Bailey bridge built when the original suspension bridge became frail. The original Edwardian structure predates the listed stone Arts and Crafts houses that now make up the village. It provided access to the wooden “navvies village” that was used by the builders of the dams, and could date from 1893.
Originally the bridge appears to have had wooden supports, then these were changed to a very attractive, tapering, steel trellis with spear head finials. The bridge extends 50 meters over the river and it’s banks, with a central span of 35 meters, it is slightly less than 3 meters wide and has almost 5 meters clearance to the top ties. The curves of the suspension cables mirror the opening of the hills. It is elegant, and became an essential part of the lovely village. Unfortunately it is not usable and its condition is sad, with rusted steel and a rotted wooden floor. It has always been a popular part of the area to photograph and, when it could be accessed, to photograph from.
It was decided that the suspension bridge was unsafe in 1988, and, at that time a “temporary” Bailey bridge was erected alongside it, this is now the main access to the village. It is shared by cars, pick-ups, tractors, lorries, dog walkers, families and photographers. Quite often visitors, wandering from the Centre into the village are astounded to find vehicles squeezing past them.
Some years ago the bridge two miles further downstream at Dolafallen was strengthened to provide alternative access to the village, but the road between that bridge and the village on the southern side of the river is single track, with high hedges and numerous bends, many right angled! It is not an ideal route, particularly for lorries.
Information from the Trust to the residents of the village is a bit spasmodic. A letter asked our opinion of an idea to renovate the suspension bridge and remove the Bailey bridge, but this would necessitate a limit to the size of vehicles that would have access. I don’t know what level of response the Trust had to this idea, but we got the impression that our reaction was fairly general – that we would love to see renovation of the suspension bridge, but that it is impractical to prohibit lorries from accessing the village. Our ideal solution would be renovation of the suspension bridge for cycles and walkers, while limiting the Bailey bridge to vehicular traffic. In 2004 Welsh Water, at that time the owners of the bridge, declared that they would not demolish the bridge which had “historical significance”. The next piece of information that we received was a letter from the Planning Department of the County Council telling us that the Trust has applied to demolish the suspension bridge!
We appear to be the only residents that objected to this plan, although we were supported in this by the various bodies charged with protecting our historical and architectural heritage. The application was refused in July of 2013. One of the objectors also pointed out that the Bailey Bridge was in need of “t l c” and that the bank side where the bridge met the road on the Visitor Centre side was being washed away. This led to a very sudden closure of the Bailey Bridge while urgent repairs were carried out. Paul, the Trust’s contractor has previously struggled to replace panels on the bridge while it remained open, allowing vehicles to pass over it, sometimes with brief delays, while he worked on it. The repairs were carried out very quickly, but it did make us all feel a bit vulnerable!
