Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale is a settlement in a side valley of the Ironbridge Gorge in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. It is in the ancient manor and ecclesiastical parish of Madeley. It was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution.

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 probably 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 possibily 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.Victoria County History, Shropshire XI, 45-9. 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. P. W. King, 'Sir Clement Clerke and the Adoption of Coal in Metallurgy' Trans. Newcomen Soc. 73(1) (2001-2), 40-1. N. Cox, 'Imagination and Innovation of an Industrial Pioneer: the First Abraham Darby' Industrial Archaeology Review XII(1) (1990), 130-1.

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.N. Cox, 'Imagination', 131-44. A. Raistrick, Dynasty of Ironfounders: The Darbys of Coalbrookdale (Sessions Book Trust, York 2nd edn. 1989). E. Thomas, Coalbrookdale and the Darbys (Sessions Book Trust, York 1999). B. Trinder, The Darbys of Coalbrookdale (Phillimore, Chichester 1978). 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. 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.

Coalbrookdale at night by Philip James de Loutherbourg, painted 1801. This shows Madeley Wood (or Bedlam) Furnaces, which belonged to the Coalbrookdale Company from 1776 to 1796.

References

See also

* Ironbridge Gorge Museums
* Telford new town

Further reading

* {{cite book