Thomas Telford invented the modern road. A stonemason turned architect turned engineer, he built churches, harbours, canals, docks, the famously vertiginous Pontcysyllte aqueduct and the exquisite Menai Bridge in Wales. He created the backbone of our national road network. His constructions were the most stupendous in Europe for a thousand years, and astonishingly, almost everything he ever built remains in use today.