Qualla: Menai Strait https://qualla.com/menai-strait en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/menai-strait-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Menai Strait https://qualla.com/menai-strait Menai Strait: Introduction https://qualla.com/menai-strait/ Photo credit Bencherlite, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Thomas Telford finished his Menai Suspension Bridge in January 1826, he had built the first major suspension bridge in the world. Nothing on the scale of his 176-metre span, hanging 30 metres above tidal water, had ever been attempted before. Across that bridge, for the first time in human history, mail coaches could roll from London to the port of Holyhead on Holy Island without a ferry. The Menai Strait - the narrow tidal channel that has separated Anglesey from the Welsh mainland for ten thousand years - had been bridged. The bridge is still there. It is still in use. And it is one of two extraordinary structures the strait demanded from the engineers who tried to cross it.

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Image: Bencherlite | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/menai-strait-wp/gcky-menai-strait-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Menai Strait: The Tide That Confuses Itself https://qualla.com/menai-strait/ Photo credit Stephen Elwyn RODDICK, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Menai Strait runs about 25 kilometres from southwest to northeast, widening from just 400 metres between Fort Belan and Abermenai Point at its southern end to 7.5 kilometres between Puffin Island and Penmaenmawr at its northern mouth. Its tides do something genuinely strange....

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Image: Stephen Elwyn RODDICK | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/menai-strait-wp/gcky-menai-strait-the-tide-that-confuses-itself.mp3 0:06 2 full Menai Strait: The Swellies and the Bridges https://qualla.com/menai-strait/ Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Between the two bridges, the strait pinches between rocks and reefs into a stretch the pilots call the Swellies - a tidal race of overfalls, whirlpools, and races that can run at almost five knots at springs. Theoretically the Swellies are fordable at low water spring tides, when...

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Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/menai-strait-wp/gcky-menai-strait-the-swellies-and-the-bridges.mp3 0:06 3 full Menai Strait: Salt and Sponges https://qualla.com/menai-strait/ Photo credit Nigel Williams, CC BY-SA 2.0. The strait's biology is as unusual as its hydraulics. Sheltered from ocean waves but flushed twice daily by powerful tides, the seabed presents one of the richest benthic ecologies in northern Europe. The channel reaches 15 metres deep in places. Currents can exceed seven knots i...

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Image: Nigel Williams | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/menai-strait-wp/gcky-menai-strait-salt-and-sponges.mp3 0:06 4 full Menai Strait: The Bridge That Won't Be Built https://qualla.com/menai-strait/ Photo credit myself, Public domain. Since 2007 the Welsh Government had been planning a third Menai crossing to relieve chronic congestion on the older two. The Britannia carries enormous traffic for a 1850s railway bridge with a 1970s road deck bolted on top. Plans, consultations, and route corridors came and went...

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Image: myself | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/menai-strait-wp/gcky-menai-strait-the-bridge-that-wont-be-built.mp3 0:06 5 full