Chirk, rest and play

You don't need to travel far to see an eye-catching 175-year-old feat of engineering, says AMY JONES

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A small but charming town in the UK, set among stunning countryside, is also surprisingly home to a 700-year-old castle and an impressive aqueduct that sits 70ft above a majestic river.

It might be easy to overlook Chirk in Wales, near the Shropshire border and just 10 miles south of Wrexham. Sure, it has a few independent shops, cosy pubs and hotels, but for years tourists have actually been flocking to the region to admire the rather eye-catching Chirk Aqueduct and Viaduct.

The Canal & River Trust describes it as “canal architecture at its finest”, noting that it’s ‘one of only a few places on our waterways where you can stand with one foot in England and one foot in Wales as it straddles the border between the two countries”.

The 220m (720ft-long) aqueduct, designed by William Jessop and Thomas Telford and completed in 1801, is part of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Llangollen Canal World Heritage site.

This stretches from Chirk to the Horseshoe Falls in Llangollen itself - 1.43km of the canal leads through Chirk Bank to Gledrid Bridge and is also a Scheduled Ancient Monument.