Welsh landmark inspires Wallace and Gromit finale

A Welsh landmark was the inspiration for the "gripping" finale in the new Wallace and Gromit film.

The final minutes of Vengeance Most Fowl shows a barge chase across an aqueduct bearing a striking resemblance to Pontcysyllte, near Wrexham.

But because the film is set in Lancashire, art director Aardman Animations Matt Perry said the team had to make some tweaks to its design.

He said: "We were after that Georgian/Victorian Age industrial period and it's a very beautiful bridge - I do love all the steel work. We did keep the metal work similar at the top."

Matt said the team created their own version, changing the stone piers to brick to mimic railway bridges of that era in north-west England.

There is no River Dee below either, instead the valley is inspired by the "drama" of sheer rock-faced Avon and Cheddar gorges, a nod to Aardman's studios in Bristol.

But Matt, who also worked on the Wallace and Gromit films A Matter of Loaf and Death and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, said there were "definite nods" to Thomas Telford's engineering masterpiece in Trevor, which stands 126ft (38m) high.

The "magnificent" structure - the tallest canal aqueduct in the world - was the starting point for the team when it was deciding what the scene would look like.

"There's a huge gripping ending that is on this aqueduct, bridging a huge gorge. When you look at it from the top - it is very similar to Pontcysyllte. That was the inspiration, for sure."

While Telford's aqueduct took 10 years to design and build before being finished in 1805, Aardman's 20ft-long version for the film took about three months.

It started with basic carpentry, followed by "a lot" of brickwork panels, which all had to be individually painted.

"It's quite lovingly, tenderly done, you know, " said Matt.

"All the bricks need a slight variation in colour and then we've got all the dirting down. A lot goes into it."

Matt said the film version was 12 arches long, compared to Pontcysyllte's 18, but "when we play the action we make it extra long in one direction, then come the other end and make it extra long the other way. So actually, ours is the longest aqueduct in the world"!

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl premieres on BBC One at 18:10 GMT on Christmas Day and will also be available on iPlayer from this time.

Those living outside of the UK will be able to watch the film on Netflix this winter.

Vengeance Most Fowl, which features the return of Wallace and Gromit's nemesis Feathers McGraw from 1993's The Wrong Trousers, took about two years to make

Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, Matt said it was his favourite and the "best one so far".

Matt said: "It has all the elements that you've come to know and love... it's a right caper. We've got, obviously, the return of Feathers, who is as evil as he's ever been. But it's also just ridiculous and daft.

"It's just totally bonkers."

The Pontcysyllte acqueduct, which gets about 500,000 visitors a year, is looked after by the Canal and Rivers Trust.

A spokesman said it was "great fun" to see the aqueduct featured and hoped the film would "inspire more boaters and visitors to come and cross the 'stream in the sky'".

They added: "This iconic structure was built by one of Britain’s greatest engineers, so it’s only fitting that it plays a part in this film about one of today’s best-known fictional inventors."

This sentiment is echoed by Matt Perry, who hopes people seeing their animated version will encourage more people to visit the Dee Valley's engineering marvel.

"That would be a lovely, that would be natural justice... for the fact that we use it as our main reference for it. I hope it does [people] proud."