page_title: Menai Strait
section_title: Britannia Bridge
hierarchical_section_title: Menai Strait / Crossings / Britannia Bridge
caption_attribution_description: English: Britannia Bridge Viewed from the Belgian Promenade at Menai Bridge.
context_page_description: The Menai Strait is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about 25 km long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales.
  The strait is bridged in two places: the Menai Suspension Bridge carrying the A5, and Robert Stephenson's 1850 Britannia Tubular Bridge. Originally the Britannia carried rail traffic in two wrought-iron rectangular box spans but after a disastrous fire in 1970, which left only the limestone pillars remaining, it was rebuilt as a steel box girder bridge, and now carries both rail and road traffic. Between the two bridge crossings there is a small island in the middle of the strait, Ynys Gorad Goch, on which are built a house and outbuildings and around which are the significant remains of fish traps, no longer used.
  The strait varies in width from 400 metres from Fort Belan to Abermenai Point to 1,100 metres from Traeth Gwyllt to Caernarfon Castle. It then narrows to 500 metres in the middle reaches and then it broadens again. At Bangor, Garth Pier, it is 900 metres wide. It then widens out, and the distance from Puffin Island to Penmaenmawr is about 8 kilometres.
context_section_description: Opened in 1850, the Britannia Bridge was built as a rail bridge connecting Anglesey to the mainland. The bridge, 461 metres long and 40 metres tall, carries the North Wales Coast Line connecting Holyhead to Crewe. Between 1970 and 1972, the bridge underwent a redesign in order to accommodate what would later become the A55, a dual carriageway connecting Chester to Holyhead. The bridge is grade two listed and is the more common crossing point out of the two bridges.
caption: Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge.
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