Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale is a side valley of the Ironbridge Gorge in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the History of Ferrous Metallurgy. It is in the ancient manor and ecclesiastical parish of Madeley. It was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution. It is home to the Ironbridge Institute, a partnership between the University of Birmingham and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust offering postgraduate and professional development courses in heritage.

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Before Abraham Darby

Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Madeley and the adjacent Little Wenlock belonged to Much Wenlock Priory. At the Dissolution there was a bloomsmithy called 'Caldebroke Smithy'. The manor passed about 1572 to John Brooke, who developed coal mining in his manor on a substantial scale. His son Sir Basil Brooke was a significant industrialist, and invested in ironworks elsewhere. It is probable that he also had ironworks at Coalbrookdale, but evidence is lacking. He also acquired an interest in the patent for the cementation process of making steel in about 1615. Though forced to surrender the patent in 1619, he continued making iron and steel until his estate was sequestrated during the Civil War, but the works continued in use.

In 1651, the manor was leased to Francis Wolfe, the clerk of the ironworks, and he and his son operated them as tenant of (or possibly manager for) Brooke's heirs. The surviving old blast furnace contains a cast iron lintel bearing a date, which is currently painted as 1638, but an archive photograph has been found showing it as 1658. What ironworks existed at Coalbrookdale and from precisely what dates thus remains obscure. By 1688, the ironworks were operated by Lawrence Wellington, but a few years after the furnace was occupied by Shadrach Fox. He renewed the lease in 1696, letting the Great Forge and Plate Forge to Wellington.^[1] Some evidence may suggest that Shadrach Fox smelted iron with mineral coal, though this remains controversial. Fox was evidently an ironfounder, as he supplied round shot and grenado shells to the Board of Ordnance during the Nine Years War, but not later than April 1703, the furnace blew up. It remained derelict until the arrival of Abraham Darby I in 1709. However the forges remained in use. A brass works was built sometime before 1712 (possibly as early as 1706), but closed in 1714. ^[2]

Industrial Revolution

In 1709, Abraham Darby I rebuilt Coalbrookdale Furnace, and used coke as his fuel. His business was that of an ironfounder, making cast iron pots and other goods, an activity in which he was particularly successful because of his patented foundry method, which enabled him to produce cheaper pots than his rivals. Coalbrookdale has been claimed as the home of the world's first coke-fired blast furnace; this is not strictly correct, but it was the first in Europe to operate successfully for more than a few years. A second furnace was built in about 1715, but Darby died prematurely in 1717, followed quickly by his widow Mary. Iron for foundry work was not only produced from the blast furnaces, but also by remelting pig iron in air furnaces, a variety of reverberatory furnace. The works then passed to a company led by his fellow Quaker Thomas Goldney of Bristol and managed by Richard Ford (also a Quaker). Abraham Darby II was brought into the business as an assistant manager when old enough. The Company also became early suppliers of steam engine cylinders in this period.

The Company operated a forge at Coalbrookdale from 1720, but this was not profitable. In about 1754, renewed experiments took place with the application of coke pig iron to the production of bar iron in charcoal finery forges. This proved to be a success, and led to the partners building new furnaces at Horsehay and Ketley. This was the beginning of a great expansion in coke ironmaking.

In 1768, the Company began to produce the first cast iron rails for railways. In 1778, Abraham Darby III undertook the building of the world's first cast iron bridge, the iconic Iron Bridge, opened in 1780. The fame of this bridge leads many people today to associate the Industrial Revolution with the neighbouring village of Ironbridge, but in fact most of the work was done at Coalbrookdale, as there was no settlement at Ironbridge in the eighteenth century.

In the 19th century, Coalbrookdale was noted for its decorative ironwork. It is here (for example) that the gates of London's Hyde Park were built. The blast furnaces were closed down, perhaps as early as the 1820s, but the foundries remained in use. The Coalbrookdale Company became part of an alliance of ironfounding companies called Light Castings Limited. This was absorbed by Allied Ironfounders Limited in 1929.^[3] This was in turn taken over by Glynwed which has since become Aga Foodservice.

The Museum

In the century after the Old Blast Furnace closed, it became buried. There was a proposal for the site to be cleared and the furnace dismantled, but fortunately, it was decided to excavate and preserve it. It and a small museum were opened to celebrate 250 years of the Company in 1959. This became part of a larger project, the Ironbridge Gorge Museums. Its Museum of Iron and the Ironbridge Institute form the sides of an open space, on another side of which is the Old Blast Furnace, now under a building to protect it from the weather. The fourth side is a viaduct carrying the railway that delivers coal to the Ironbridge Power Station. One of the two tracks is due to be taken over by Telford Steam Railway as part of their southern extension from Horsehay. The Museum's archaeology unit continues to investigate the earlier history of Coalbrookdale, and has recently excavated the remains of the 17th century cementation furnaces, near the site of the Upper (formerly Middle) Forge.

Old Furnace

The Old Furnace began life as a typical blast furnace, but went over to coke in 1709. Abraham Darby I used it to cast pots, kettles and other goods. His grandson Abraham Darby III smelted the iron here for the for Ironbridge, the world's first iron bridge.

The lintels of the furnace bear dated inscriptions. The uppermost reads 'Abraham Darby 1778', probably recording its enlargement for casting the Iron Bridge. It is unclear whether the date on one of the lower ones should be 1638 (as it is now painted) or 1658 (as shown on an old photo. The interior profile of the furnace is typical of its period, bulging around the middle, below which the boshes taper in again so that the charge descends into a narrower and notter hearth, where the iron was molten. When Abraham Darby III enlarged the furnace, he only made the boshes wider on the front and left sides, but not on the right where doing so would have entailed moving the water wheel. The mouth of the furnace is thus off-centre.

Iron was now being made in large quantities for many customers. In the 1720s and 1730s, its main products were cast iron cooking pots, kettles and other domestic articles. It also cast the cyliners for steam engines, and pig iron for use by other foundries. In the late 18th century, it sometimes produced structural ironwork, including for Buildwas Bridge. This was built in 1795, 2 miles up the river from the original Ironbridge. Due to advances in technology, it used only half as much cast iron despite being 30 feet (9 m) wider than the Ironbridge. The year after that, in 1796, Thomas Telford began a new project, the Longdon aqueduct. It carried the Shrewsbury Canal over the River Tern and was supported by cast iron columns. Charles Bage designed and built the world's first multi-storey cast-iron-framed mill. It used only brick and iron, with no wood, to improve its fire-resistance. In the 19th century ornamental ironwork became a speciality.

See also

• Ironbridge Gorge Museums
• Telford new town
• Green Wood Centre

Notes

1. ^ Baugh (1985), p. 45-49
2. ^ King (2002), p. 40-41; Cox (1990), p. 130-311
3. ^ Cox (1990), p. 131-144; Raistrick (1989); Thomas (1999); Trinder (1978)

References

• Baugh, G.C. (Ed.) (1985) A History of Shropshire, Vol. XI: Telford, the Liberty & Borough of Wenlock (part), Bradford hundred, Victoria history of the counties of England, Oxford University Press ; London : Institute of Historical Research, ISBN 0-19-722763-5
• Cox, N. (1990) "Imagination and Innovation of an Industrial Pioneer: the First Abraham Darby", Industrial Archaeology Review, XII (1) , p. 127–144
• King, P. W. (2002) "Sir Clement Clerke and the Adoption of Coal in Metallurgy", Trans. Newcomen Soc., 73A, p. 33–52
• Raistrick, Arthur (1989) Dynasty of iron founders : the Darbys and Coalbrookdale, 2nd rev. ed., Coalbrookdale : Sessions Book Trust/Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, ISBN 1-85072-058-4
• Thomas, E. (1999) Coalbrookdale and the Darby family : the story of the world's first industrial dynasty, York : Sessions/Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, ISBN 1-85072-217-X
• Trinder, B. (1978) The Darbys of Coalbrookdale, Rev. imp., London : Phillimore/Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, ISBN 0-85033-305-9

Further reading

• Berg, Torsten and Berg, Peter (transl.) (2001) R.R. Angerstein's illustrated travel diary, 1753-1755 : industry in England and Wales from a Swedish perspective, London : Science Museum, ISBN 1-900747-24-3
• Scarfe, Norman (1995) Innocent espionage : the La Rochefoucauld Brothers' tour of England in 1785, Woodbridge : Boydell Press, ISBN 0-85115-596-0
• Trinder, Barrie Stuart (1988) The Most extraordinary district in the world : Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale : an anthology of visitors' impressions of Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale and the Shropshire coalfield, 2nd ed., Chichester : Phillimore/Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, ISBN 0-85033-685-6

Coordinates: 52.63902° N 2.49205° W