world’s first cast iron bridge

Primrose Peace In The Midst Of Moving House

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve not been around much in the last few months. And the reason? The Farrells are on the move, out of Much Wenlock and into next-door Broseley (ten minutes drive away), leaving the edge of Wenlock Edge for a new edge atop the Severn Gorge and above the world’s first cast iron bridge (1779).

In fact the Iron Bridge will be in walking distance of the new house, although maybe only on the outward foray. The Gorge is so steep, a bus ride back could well be called for. Anyway, this is what’s been going on – house selling, possessions culling, allotment retreating and finally, in the last three weeks, the hair-raising dash to find a rental property before the new owner moves in. Phew and double-phew. (Who knew that renting anywhere these days is so fraught with difficulties).

We began this whole moving process over a year ago, and it scarcely needs saying that it’s been very stressful. It’s definitely been a matter of snatching peaceful moments as and when. And of course, for gardening types, spotting signs of spring is always a welcome distraction from domestic chaos. I was busy repatriating allotment tools when I first noticed the primroses along the hedge bank beside Townsend Meadow. This was around the end of January, and I was surprised to see them flowering so early (neck and neck with the snowdrops). Clearly, unlike Mrs. Farrell, neither mind the frigid temps we’ve been having.

Some of you may also be wondering why we’re moving when there’s no obvious necessity. On anxiety-ridden days I have been wondering this myself. But then I have long been hankering for a home with a vegetable garden attached as opposed to one a field’s walk away. Not that I won’t miss the walk, or the views above the town, or the raven that flies cronking over my polytunnel in the late afternoon, or the chats with fellow allotmenteers.

But I will be glad to leave the allotment’s dispiritingly claggy Silurian soil, the endemic pests and weeds typical of free-for-all community gardens and the outrageous numbers of snails. And of course, I am getting on a bit! I would like to nurture my soil, not do battle with it. Nor do I really want to dash across the field for the lettuce I forgot to pick earlier.

So the plan: to rent for a time in Broseley while looking for a place to buy – hopefully somewhere over Wenlock Edge into South Shropshire and closer to dear younger sibling, the hill country, and also to better functioning public transport systems.

And yes, I will be sad to leave our upstairs-downstairs garden, and Graham his custom-made, super self-built shed. We’ll also miss our quirky cottage (though not the spiders). I’m sure, too, we’re going to feel more than a touch stranded in a rented house that’s not at all our style, to say nothing of the daunting prospect of moving TWICE.

Summer garden and Graham’s peaceful place freshly built

But then Broseley is a very fascinating old town, whose maze-like streets (jitties) of higgledly-piggledy cottages, reflect the arrival of immigrant miners way back in the 1590s when the town’s population of 5,000 was apparently much the same as today’s. The other key industry was clay pipe making, the products exported around the world, and the pipes themselves referred to as ‘Broseleys’.

Here’s a nice taster of what’s to explore from Broseley Historical Society.

Meanwhile, as the packing cases pile high in the living room, and sixteen years of covert dust alarmingly reveals itself, out in the garden, all is still wintery, the crab apple tree eaten bare and the guerrilla garden over the fence very endy.

But then in the shady corner behind Graham’s shed there’s a small scatter of miniature crocuses. So soothing to spend a few quiet moments with them before the big move at the end of the week (with the added thrill of forecast SNOW!)

Lens-Artists: Finding Peace This week Tina’s theme could not be more apt here on Sheinton Street.

The Shortest Day And A Trip To Ironbridge

It seemed like a good way for the Farrells to mark the winter solstice – a little wander through Ironbridge town and over the bridge itself. It was anyway a glorious day, and the bridge was looking its festive best in its ochre-red livery.

A fine exemplar of Shropshire’s heritage.

Those of you who come here often will know that this is reputedly the world’s first cast iron bridge, built by Abraham Darby III and opened for the carriage trade and other toll paying traffic in the New Year of 1781.

Of course, as was intended all along, it became the sightseeing phenomenon of the age. Everyone who was anyone had to come, look and pronounce on this pioneering wonder. The Coalbrookdale Company of ironmasters were naturally well prepared. They had also built the Tontine inn, a smart hostelry at the foot of the bridge.

Here it is with its mint green shutters, and still open for business. Also if you squint, you can ‘see’ the church clock is just striking noon. Can you hear the chimes ringing out on the cold December air?

The middle of the bridge is a good spot to stop for views of the Severn Gorge, now a World Heritage Site.

Once, this upstream view would have been filled with busyness. There were boat builders’ yards along the left bank. Then there was the river traffic itself, Severn trows, the great sailing barges up from Gloucester and Bristol, putting in at the Coalbrookdale Company’s warehouse, just visible at the river’s vanishing point. The trows brought in luxury goods: fine glassware, casks of port, Madeira, Spanish wines, sugar, molasses, serge cloth, the latest hats and bonnets, peach wood for cabinet making, blocks of marble, tobacco, salt fish.

On the return voyage the trows took on consignments of pig iron and castings of every kind, in particular the iron cauldrons, latterly known as missionary pots. They came in all sizes from the family porridge pot to large scale containers for industrial processes. They were rarely, if ever, deployed for the braising of missionaries.

This downstream view suggests unchanging tranquillity, but think again. Come the February flood season, the force of water rushing down from Wales and through the Gorge can be devastating. Even these days, with flood defences in place, there can be extensive overflow. The Great Flood of 1795 saw every Severn bridge damaged or taken out. Only the Iron Bridge remained unscathed.

Times of drought brought other perils. Large sandbanks formed and well loaded barges could find themselves grounded, often for weeks at a time. Such eventualities were catered for by a string of inns along both banks. And these were not only places of respite for the stranded. The riverside taverns were also said to be the haunt of industrial spies, out to gather company secrets over a jug or two of ale.

On Wednesday noon, 21st Dec. 2022, the Wharfage slumbered in the winter sunshine. There was barely a sign of a Christmas shopper. No coach and horses clattering up the hill to the Tontine. No carts unloading and loading precious goods in transit. No crowds of merchants’ clerks checking the cargo lists, or shouts of boat masters cajoling their crews. Or the pounding of the steam hammer at the riverside ironworks, that caused the men who worked it to grow deaf; the thud and thud and thud rebounding down the Gorge. Some things change for the better.

Happy New Year One And All

And whatever our beliefs, or lack of them, a strong prayer for more sanity and truth will not come amiss

Below The World’s First Cast Iron Bridge: Half ‘n Half-Light

I admit this is not a great shot of one of industrial history’s key artefacts, though you can just make out the new rust-red livery of the ironwork. Obviously the thing that caught my eye here was the strange lighting effect between bridge and river.

But for those of you who like a few facts to support ‘first in the world’ claims, the bridge was built in 1779 by Quaker Ironmaster Abraham Darby III. It spans the Severn Gorge in Ironbridge, Shropshire, and was intended to replace a (sometimes treacherous) ferry crossing between Broseley and Coalbrookdale, much used by the local workforce. But most of all it was designed to impress. Not only was it the world’s first cast iron bridge, so demonstrating a pioneering structural material, it was also the first single span bridge on the River Severn (all the other bridges were built of stone and had low arches). This new design meant that the large sailing barges (trows) coming up from Bristol did not have to de-mast to pass under it.

The River Severn trade was a busy one too – all manner of luxury goods coming upstream, locally produced pig iron, castings, ceramics and porcelain going downstream. Inevitably then, word of this daring new structure would quickly spread. People would start thinking of cast iron as a material with prospects. The Coalbrookdale iron masters certainly had plenty of ideas – from the industrial (iron framed factories, wagon wheels, rails, boiler castings) to the decorative and all points in between. The Great Exhibition of 1851 and the world trade fairs that it engendered provided the shop window for their ever more ingenious fabrications.

The Company’s catalogues were the ‘style books’ of the late 19th century. Cast iron was used to make just about everything – glasshouse frames, intricate park gates, garden rollers, seats, horse troughs, statues, fountains, stoves, boot scrapers, fire surrounds, nut crackers, bandstands, lamp posts, fruit bowls, cooking pots, grave memorials and all manner of finials and fancy pieces. Its beauty lay in the fact that once designs had been committed to moulds, pieces could be mass produced, and whether for grand architectural statements for the stately pile or a cauldron for the workman’s home the material was supremely functional (if a little cold to the touch).

So how about one of these to hang your hat on:

These pieces might seem ‘overdone’ to our eyes, but they involved consummate skill (and physical risk) in their moulding and casting. As to design, the Coalbrookdale Company founded a technical institute for its workforce with the specific aim of nurturing local expertise and innovation in the fields of decorative ironwork.

But these days it is perhaps the enduring and durable ornamental garden seat that is more appealing to us. Here’s one I spotted at Dudmaston Hall back in the summer:

And now back to where it and I started, but with a better view of the Iron Bridge: Abraham Darby III’s magnificent cast iron PR stunt. And it’s still going strong after 241 years (thanks to some recent rigorous conservation work by English Heritage). And still the tourist attraction it was back then too – even to us locals who like to pay homage to this piece of engineering chutzpah every once in a while.

January Light #24

Present and Past in the Ironbridge Gorge

This coal-fired power station sits at the entrance to the scenic Ironbridge Gorge on the River Severn in Shropshire. Even when you know it’s there, to come upon the four great cooling towers through the trees, is always a surprise. Its days, however, are numbered, and many of us are wondering how the power station powers-that-be will go about recycling the place, and especially on the edge of a World Heritage Site. Just downstream is Ironbridge town, named after the world’s first cast iron bridge, built between 1779-1781 by Coalbrookdale ironmaster, Abraham Darby III. (See my earlier post Bridge, What Bridge)

Before this bridge arrived on the scene as an 18th century world wonder, earlier bridges were mostly built of stone, usually with several low arches. The particularly novel aspect of the Iron Bridge’s design, then, was the high single arch, devised to allow the large sailing barges, known as Severn trows to pass beneath without lowering their masts. This was a clear piece of Coalbrookdale Company bravado, since the trows would have had to lower their masts for all the numerous other Severn bridges, both up and downstream of the Iron Bridge.

Looking at the sleepy river today, it is hard to imagine that in 1712, Coalbrookdale’s iron works were exporting 1,400 tons of iron wares downriver. It’s hard to imagine too, that although a hundred miles from Bristol, that the towns of Ironbridge and Broseley (on either side the bridge) were busy inland ports, with boat builders’ yards, and locally owned trows. The trade also went upriver to Shrewsbury which in turn exported cloth from the Welsh hinterland and local agricultural produce.

Ironbridge town and bridge, trows in the foreground; attributed to J. Fidlor some time after 1837, Shrewsbury Museum

Fascinating details of the trade are preserved in the Gloucester Port Books. For instance, they record one of the Bristol-bound cargoes of the Broseley barge Thomas & Mary in 1722. It included:

10 tons of ironware; 8 tons of cheese; 8 packs of Manchester ware; 2 packs of sadlery ware; 2 hogsheads of oats; 2 barrels of oats; 8 hogsheads of hair; 80 crates of earthenware; 1 barrel of brass; 2 trunks of wearing apparel; 2 boxes of wearing apparel.

An upriver cargo that same year comprised:

40 bags of cotton wool; 40 packs and a truss of cloth; 4 hogsheads of train oil; 1 ton of saltery; 2 barrels of herrings; 5 cwt. of salt fish; 4 cwt. of red lead.

The prestigious nature of the trade is perhaps embodied in the Severn Warehouse, now part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. It stands on the river mid way between the Ironbridge Power Station and the Iron Bridge, and was built by the Coalbrookdale Company in 1834 in flamboyant Gothic Revival style. Down its iron rails to waiting barges would have trundled carts loaded with iron castings of every sort, both functional and decorative, heading for markets throughout Britain and across the Empire. It did a particularly thriving trade in iron bellied, so-called Missionary Pots – some holding up to 400 gallons, and thus big enough to hold a missionary or two. They were actually used for processes like soap making and rendering down whale blubber.

But back to those cooling towers. I am rather fascinated by them; as indeed was TV historian Dr. David Starkey, when I was showing him around the Severn Warehouse many moons ago. He was doing some consultancy for me at the time, and when I told him that in 1979, the Iron Bridge bicentenary year, the cooling towers had been lit up at night, he grew very animated, and said it was a pity that this was not a permanent feature. He felt that the power station provided a dramatic analogy of industrial prowess that would help visitors to the Gorge to grasp a sense of the importance of past technological innovation. Some people will of course hate them as ‘blots on the landscape’. But anyway, see what you think. Here’s a shot that Graham took during their nightly illumination in 1979:

Black & White Sunday Go here for more ‘unusual’ shots in B & W

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge