Ironbridge

Iron Bridge

Exclusive audio guide

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Julian Humphrys discusses the history of the Iron Bridge on the audio guide that accompanies this piece.

 

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Julian Humphrys heads to Ironbridge, Shropshire to explore one of the hubs of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site

It’s hard to imagine it now, but this green and pleasant wooded gorge and the two smaller river valleys leading into it once formed one of the most important industrial sites in the world. Coal had been mined and limestone quarried in the area since medieval times, and iron had been produced since the reign of Henry VIII. But it was the 18th century that saw Coalbrookdale, as the area was then known, take its place at the cutting edge of what is often called the Industrial Revolution.

In 1709 Abraham Darby, a Quaker brass-founder who had moved to Coalbrookdale from Bristol, finally succeeded in smelting iron with coke. Coke, which was produced by baking coal at high temperatures, was much cheaper and more plentiful than charcoal, which had been used in the process until then. Darby’s discovery would enable the iron needed by the engineers of the Industrial Revolution to be produced in vastly increased quantities.

Darby’s intentions had been rather modest – he wanted to make cheap iron pots – but successive generations of his family were more ambitious. Within decades the Coalbrookdale ironworks was producing a wide range of industrial items including iron wheels, rails, steam cylinders and, of course, bridges. Competition in the Victorian period led the Coalbrookdale Company to specialise and it gained new fame for the production of decorative cast ironwork, especially statues and gates. The entrance gates to the 1851 Great Exhibition were made in Coalbrookdale.

The late 18th and 19th centuries saw many other companies and industries flourish at Ironbridge: Broseley clay tobacco pipes, Maws and Craven Dunnill tiles and, maybe most famous of all, Coalport china. Some production still takes place here but it’s on a tiny scale compared to the past. Yet reminders of the area’s industrial heyday are everywhere with substantial remains of mines, foundries, furnaces, factories and warehouses to be seen and several museums to visit. These tell the story of the area’s industrial heritage and range from the extensive open-air Blists Hill Victorian Town to the dark, brick-lined Tar Tunnel.

Ironbridge Gorge is unique and in 1986 its historical importance was recognised by its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ironbridge Daytripper map Download map as a PDF

1. Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron

Discover the story of the early iron industry together with extensive collections of domestic and decorative ironwork. Remains of the water powered blast furnace, where Abraham
Darby I perfected the smelting of iron with coke instead of charcoal, stand nearby.

2. Darby Houses

Five generations of the Darby family lived here. The two properties now house displays about the family and their life and work. Restored to its late 18th-century appearance, Dale House features the study where Abraham Darby III planned the construction of the Iron Bridge. Rosehill is decorated in the style of the 1850s.

3. Museum of the Gorge

Housed in an ornate gothic-style warehouse beside the river Severn, the museum explains the historical importance of the Ironbridge area. One highlight is a 40-foot-long scale model of the gorge as it was in August 1796 when the Prince of Orange came to visit it.

4. The Iron Bridge and Tollhouse

Designed by Shrewsbury architect Thomas Pritchard, cast by local ironmaster Abraham Darby III and erected in 1779, this was the world’s first cast-iron bridge and one of the great symbols of the Industrial Revolution. An exhibition in the original tollhouse on the south side of the bridge explains how and why it was built.

5. Broseley Pipe Works

This was once one of the busiest clay tobacco pipe makers in the country. Production ceased in the 1950s and the contents of the factory were left where they were for years. Following the building’s restoration in 1996 the bulk of the contents were carefully returned to their original positions so that it now looks as though the workforce have just left.

6. Jackfield Tile Museum

At the end of the 19th century the village of Jackfield was the centre of the world’s tile industry. Built in the 1870s, the Craven Dunnill factory is now a museum with displays of tiles and reconstructions ranging from a tube station to a butchers shop, a hotel bar to a hospital ward.

7. Coalport China Museum

The national collections of Coalport and Caughley china are displayed here in the listed buildings of the Coalport China Factory, which finally closed in the 1920s.

8. Tar Tunnel

In 1786 miners digging a tunnel to transport coal from the mines at Blists Hill struck a spring of natural bitumen. Soon thousands of gallons a week were being collected. You can put on a hard hat and walk along part of the tunnel. But take care! Sticky black tar still oozes through the joints of the brick lining.

9. Blists Hill Victorian Town

This is one of Britain’s best-known open-air museums, a recreation of a late Victorian town with shops, cottages and workshops and costumed interpreters, traders and craftspeople. Some buildings have been saved from destruction by being moved from their original locations and re-erected at the site.

Information

Ironbridge Tourist Information Centre, The Toll House, Ironbridge, Telford, Shropshire TF8 7AW

www.ironbridge.org.uk

tel: 01952 884391