History of the old bridge ...

As a youngster William worked diligently on his family’s farm and soon showed an interest in dry stonewalling and building work in general.

When builders visited the area, he would learn from them the techniques that were to stand him in good stead in later life. He started building himself and one of his many projects was a mill at Craig y Fedw just east of Abertridwr.

William’s first attempt was a three arch structure, which stood for 26 months before being washed away by debris carried by the river Taff in flood. The second attempt was to span the Taff without any supporting pillars midstream. Staging collapse caused the failure of this attempt when the structure that was used to support the heavy bridge during the building phase gave way.

The next attempt was also to end in failure when the centre section collapsed because it could not support the weight of the large side haunches. This gave Edwards the idea for his fourth attempt. He would modify the design and create large tunnels through the haunches on each side to reduce the weight transfer to the centre section. These tunnels measuring 9 feet for the bottom, 6 feet for the middle and 3 feet for the top were to prove successful and the bridge was finally completed in 1756.