\t\t\t\tThe area around Ironbridge is described by those promoting it as a tourist destination as the “Birthplace of the\u00a0Industrial Revolution”. This description is based on the idea that\u00a0Abraham Darby\u00a0perfected the technique of\u00a0smelting\u00a0iron\u00a0with\u00a0coke, in Coalbrookdale, allowing much cheaperproduction of iron. Smelting iron by Darby was but one small part of this generalised revolution and was soon superseded by the great iron-smelting areas. However, the bridge – being the first of its kind fabricated from cast iron, and one of the few which have survived to the present day – remains an important symbol representative of the dawn of the industrial age.\u00a0The grandson of the first Abraham Darby,\u00a0Abraham Darby III, built the famous bridge – originally designed by\u00a0Thomas Farnolls Pritchard\u00a0– to link the two areas. Construction began in 1779 and the bridge opened on New Year’s Day 1781. Soon afterwards the ancient\u00a0Madeley\u00a0market was relocated to the new purpose built square and\u00a0Georgian\u00a0Butter Cross and the former dispersed settlement of Madeley Wood gained a planned urban focus as Ironbridge, the commercial and administrative centre of the\u00a0Coalbrookdale\u00a0coalfield. The Iron Bridge proprietors also built the\u00a0Tontine\u00a0Hotel to accommodate visitors to the new Bridge and the industrial sights of the Severn Gorge. On the hillside above the river are situated the stone-built 16th century hunting Lodge at Lincoln Hill, many 17th and 18th century workers cottages, some imposing Georgian houses built by\u00a0ironmasters\u00a0and mine and canal barge owners, and many early\u00a0Victorian\u00a0villas built from the various coloured bricks and tiles of the locality.\u00a0St Luke’s Church (1837) in simple\u00a0Commissioners’ Gothic\u00a0by Samuel Smith of Madeley, has\u00a0stained glass\u00a0by David Evans of\u00a0Shrewsbury. The living was endowed as a rectory when the parish was created from Madeley in 1847 and is now a united with Coalbrookdale and\u00a0Little Wenlock, in the\u00a0Diocese of Hereford. The former Iron Bridge and\u00a0Broseley\u00a0railway station, on the Severn Valley line (GWR) from\u00a0Hartlebury\u00a0to Shrewsbury, was situated on the south side of the Iron Bridge until 1966.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The area around Ironbridge is described by those promoting it as a tourist destination as the “Birthplace of the\u00a0Industrial Revolution”. This description is based on the idea that\u00a0Abraham Darby\u00a0perfected the technique of\u00a0smelting\u00a0iron\u00a0with\u00a0coke, in Coalbrookdale, allowing much cheaperproduction of iron. Smelting iron by Darby was but one small part of this generalised revolution and was soon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4318,4273],"tags":[4375,4409],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ironbridge","category-places","tag-ironbridge","tag-telford","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6OeSW-bB","jetpack-related-posts":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjpitts.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}