The Ironbridge Gorge is a deep

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

, containing the

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, England. It was first formed by a glacial overflow from the long drained away Lake Lapworth, at the end of the last ice age. The deep exposure of the rocks cut through by the gorge exposed commercial deposits of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and fireclay, which enabled the rapid economic development of the area during the early

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

. Originally called the Severn Gorge, the gorge now takes its name from its famous Iron Bridge, the first

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

of its kind in the world, and a monument to the industry that began there. The bridge was built in 1779 to link the industrial town of Broseley with the smaller mining town of Madeley and the growing industrial centre of

Coalbrookdale Coalbrookdale is a town in the Ironbridge Gorge and the Telford and Wrekin borough of Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called The Gorge, Shro ...

. There are two reasons the site was so useful to the early industrialists. The raw materials,

and

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

, for the manufacture of

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, Rock (geology), stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, wal ...

s and

porcelain Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...

are exposed or easily mined in the gorge. The deep and wide river allowed easy transport of products to the sea at

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel (, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales (from Pembrokeshire to the Vale of Glamorgan) and South West England (from Devon to North Somerset). It extends ...

Formation

The gorge carries the

south towards the

. It was formed during the last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

when the water from the previously north-flowing river became trapped in a lake ( Lake Lapworth) created when the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea is a body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel and to the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland in the north by the North Ch ...

ice sheet dammed the river. The lake level rose until the water flowed through the hills to the south. This flow eroded a path through the hills, forming the gorge and permanently diverting the Severn southwards.

The Gorge parish

The Gorge is a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

within the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

of Telford and Wrekin and the

ceremonial county Ceremonial counties, formally known as ''counties for the purposes of the lieutenancies'', are areas of England to which lord-lieutenant, lord-lieutenants are appointed. A lord-lieutenant is the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, monarch's repres ...

. It covers the part of Ironbridge Gorge that falls within the Telford and Wrekin Council

Unitary Authority A unitary authority is a type of local government, local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are ...

area and includes the settlements of

, Coalport, Ironbridge, Jackfield and Lightmoor, but not Buildwas or Broseley which are in the

Shropshire Council Shropshire Council, known between 1980 and 2009 as Shropshire County Council and prior to 1980 as Salop County Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Shropshire (district), Shropshire in t ...

area. It is divided into three parish wards: Coalport & Jackfield (2 councillors), Ironbridge Gorge (3 councillors) and Lightmoor (3 councillors). The Gorge Parish Council has its offices and holds its meetings at the Maws Craft Centre in Jackfield. The population of this civil parish at the 2011 census was 3,275. Women in the Ironbridge Gorge ward had the third lowest life expectancy at birth, 74 years, of any ward in England and Wales in 2016.

Conservation in the Gorge

Green Wood Centre has spent over twenty years training new

coppice Coppicing is the traditional method in woodland management of cutting down a tree to a tree stump, stump, which in many species encourages new Shoot (botany), shoots to grow from the stump or roots, thus ultimately regrowing the tree. A forest ...

and woodland workers, with the aim of reviving the coppicing industry. Severn Gorge Countryside Trust manages most of the woodland, grassland and other countryside within the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, around in all.

BTCV The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) is a British charity that connects people to green spaces through volunteering, focused on environmental conservation through practical tasks undertaken by volunteers. Until 1 May 2012, it traded as BTCV – B ...

's Green Gym works with the trust to assist them on woodland work. Severn Gorge Countryside Trust and The Green Wood Centre run a joint volunteer project enabling local people to engage locally in activities such as coppicing, scrub removal, deer fencing, step building and woodland management.

Gallery

File:Downstream from the ironbridge - geograph.org.uk - 267024.jpg, Downstream from the ironbridge File:Redressing the bridge - geograph.org.uk - 599687.jpg, Redressing the bridge in 2007 File:The Iron Bridge (Aerial).JPG, Aerial view File:Passageway beneath The Iron Bridge.jpg, Passageway beneath the Iron Bridge - October 2021

References

External links

Ironbridge Gorge Museums

World Heritage Site information
from

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...