Biography
Come with us to the river Severn in Shropshire and read about the significance of the Iron Bridge.
The Basics
A modestly sized bridge across a river gorge in Shropshire doesn’t necessarily look like it ought to have changed the world, but it did. Wood or stone were what bridges were made of. Iron was for making cooking pots and shoeing horses. When young Abraham Darby, whose family had been producing iron in the village of Coalbrookdale for generations, first proposed the idea in the mid-18th century, you could say the family’s attitude was that the idea was just crazy enough to work.
The Iron Bridge: A History
If the surrounding area were not bristling with museums and heritage signs, you might be forgiven for missing the significance of the Iron Bridge. It spans a very pleasant stretch of the river Severn in the middle of rural Shropshire, a 100ft-long arc of graceful cast iron, painted grey, supporting a 24ft-wide deck with two pavements. You might stop and look at the board on the tollhouse wall, which tells you what the various charges used to be for crossing it, and then stroll up to the apex of the bridge where, inscribed in the centrepiece on either side in small white numerals, its date of construction would suddenly bring you up short – 1779.
