MONUMENTS
OF INDUSTRY
Course No. 025 Tutor - John Powell
During the eighteenth century, the area around Coalbrookdale in East Shropshire
witnessed a number of technological breakthroughs which were to help transform
Britain from a largely agricultural country to an industrialised one, which
less than a century later would be proudly proclaiming itself as the "Workshop
of the World". A new process for the manufacture of cast iron was pioneered
here by the first Abraham Darby in 1709, whilst his descendants and their associates
were involved in making early steam engine cylinders, developing the use of
iron rails and iron wheels, building the Iron Bridge and constructing the world's
first steam railway locomotive. The whole area became a hive of activity, with
countless forges, foundries, ironworks, coalmines, quarries, canals, railways
and, of course, the workers' housing, chapels and other buildings which went
with them.During the nineteenth century there was further growth following the
establishment of the Coalport China factory alongside the River Severn and a
rapid expansion in the number of brick and tile making factories in the Jackfield
area.
In the twentieth century, the region's prosperity declined rapidly. Blast furnaces
fell silent, and gradually most of the accompanying mines, factories and transport
systems were abandoned though, fortunately, not all destroyed. Nature was allowed
to reclaim what she had lost, and the Ironbridge Gorge reverted back to the
beautiful, tranquil, wooded river valley it had been before the Industrial Revolution
began. During the 1960's, the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust was established
to preserve the most significant industrial remains for posterity and, in 1986,
their importance on a global scale was recognised when the area was designated
by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
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