Bridge South East of Old Cable House

Cadw's description

Location

Located approximately 0.5km E of Leighton Farm on the S side of a private forest road E of Leighton Farm at the foot of a woodland plantation. The bridge is SE of the Old Cable House. It spans a stone-lined leat and has a pond on the W side.

History

Erected late 1850s to carry a pipe across a leat to the Lower Cable House, where it fed water to a turbine providing power for an inclined plane. The water was also taken beyond the Cable House to Leighton Farm. The pipe was buried below the deck, the bridge also being used by pedestrians, it leading across a leat to a network of woodland paths. The bridge was an integral part of the Leighton Estate, acquired by the Liverpool banker John Naylor in 1846-47. Here he embarked on an ambitious programme of building, principally Leighton Hall, church and Farm, which was largely completed by the mid 1850s. He continued to extend and improve the Estate until his death in 1889. His grandson, Captain J.M. Naylor, sold the Estate in 1931. Naylor introduced new rational farming methods at Leighton, applying techniques derived from science and industry, including the pioneering use of turbines and hydraulic rams, with which the bridge is closely associated. It also combined a practical with a leisure function as part of the network of woodland paths at Leighton, representing the dual purpose of Naylor’s planned landscape.

Exterior

Single-span bridge with a sloping deck. Of coursed sandstone with a round arch. The parapet is of snecked, rock-faced Cefn stone and is stepped. It has a plinth band above a plain corbel table, saddleback copings, and ends in square piers with pyramidal caps.

Reason for designation

The Leighton Estate is an exceptional example of high-Victorian estate development. It is remarkable for the scale and ambition of its conception and planning, the consistency of its design, the extent of its survival, and is the most complete example of its type in Wales. The bridge is an important element of this whole ensemble at Leighton. It is also a component of the remarkable and ambitious application of advanced technology at Leighton, while its distinctive and ornamental character expresses the dual purpose of Leighton as a highly-planned landscape serving the needs of work and leisure.