Pont Fawr

Pont Fawr is a stone bridge crossing the River Conwy in the market town of Llanrwst. It stands in Conwy County Borough in north Wales and carries both vehicles and pedestrians. The bridge is about fifty-one metres long and has three arches resting on two piers. It is built from gritstone and Welsh slate rubble, with coats of arms carved above datestones on either side. The bridge is listed at the highest grade and protected as a scheduled monument. The bridge replaced an earlier crossing swept away by floods in the early 17th century. Permission to rebuild was granted in 1634 and the new bridge was finished by 1636. A long tradition credits the design to Inigo Jones, working through his patron Sir Richard Wynn. Architectural historians Edward Hubbard and John Hilling both argue the attribution is plausible, noting Jones’s position as Surveyor General when the Privy Council directed the work. Visitors walk across the wide deck of Pont Fawr, noticing the steep camber that limits sightlines along the bridge. The coats of arms above the datestones show the Stuart royal arms on the south side and the Prince of Wales’s feathers on the north. The bridge has appeared in many topographical studies, including engravings by Thomas Pennant and paintings by John Laporte and Hugh Hughes. It remains a quiet but striking example of 17th-century engineering in a town that has grown around it.