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From the Severn Bridge to Tower Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge to the Golden Gate in San Francisco, bridges link us to each other and inspire us. In this week's programme Adam explores the challenges involved in designing and building a bridge and discovering how engineers combine form and function in a structure that's reliable, safe and even beautiful.

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Adam starts his journey at Quaker's Yard near Merthyr Tydfil where he talks to engineering historian Stephen K. Jones about the history of bridge-building in Wales. Then we move on to Chepstow, home of bridge engineering company Mabey Bridge, where Adam joins chairman Peter Lloyd who takes him into the company's enormous workshop where they're currently putting together the components for a bridge to cross the river at Walton-on-Thames.

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Not far from Mabey's headquarters in Chepstow is one of its most famous projects, the original Severn Bridge opened in 1966. This is where Adam meets Prof. David Blockley from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol. David tells Adam how to 'read' a bridge: the different structures engineers use, the forces at work in a bridge and how bridges can be beautiful as well as functional.

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