Distance: 6.6 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Varied urban, suburban and rural walk from central Telford to Ironbridge home of 1781’s iconic pathbreaking Iron Bridge right at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
Ironbridge’s Famous Iron Bridge
Crouching across the northern part of Shropshire’s Severn Gorge (now commonly refered to as Ironbridge Gorge), there are perhaps few structures as instantly recognisable as artefacts of the Midland’s early industrial revolution, as the Iron Bridge.
Opened in 1781, designed by the infamous John “Iron-Mad” Wilkinson, and cast within the Gorge at the foundry of Abraham Darby III, it is the spectacular first successful attempt at building a major bridge carrying a public highway entirely from metal.
So important and distinctive is the Iron Bridge that the almost perfectly formed, brilliantly preserved, late Eighteenth Century industrial village rising up the slope of the gorge to its north, is named Ironbridge. As noted a common name for the northern part of the Shropshire Severn Gorge is the Ironbridge Gorge.
This is perhaps fitting, as not only is the bridge an important Midlands symbol of industrial prowess and skill, but in many ways its straight lined, yet intricate, aesthetic and styling has been endlessly reproduced and come to represent the industrial age. Recurring throughout the Nineteenth Century in structures like (former employee of Derbyshire’s Chatsworth Estate) Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, as well as being riffed upon and utilised in more recent times by postmodern inclined high-tech architects and steampunks alike.
With the growth of the Gorge, from a small, remote, metalworking district, into a major industrial area during the Eighteenth Century, by the 1770s it was recognised that a new bridge across the Severn was required to supplement the medieval structure at Buildwas which was constructed on the orders of the monastery which had stood there prior to the reformation.
It was in 1773 that the idea of the Iron Bridge was seriously proposed. A petition circulated in 1773-74 with the objective of putting pressure on parliament to pass the private members bill necessary to allow major infrastructure projects to be undertaken. A round of subscriptions was launched to construct it in 1775 which raised around £3,500 in that year’s prices. All indicative of there being some degree of public interest in the project in and around Shropshire. An act of parliament authorising construction followed in 1776.
When a tender for construction went out, however; the authorities constructing the bridge appeared to have cooled upon the idea of iron construction. While Abraham Darby III was initially awarded the contract, he soon lost it, with a revised specification being issued for a bridge constructed from “stone, brick or timber”. This revised specification did not receive any viable proposals, meaning that an iron structure was back on the table.
Construction of the Iron Bridge began in 1777 with work on the masonry abutments and other bank side elements of the project finished by the end of 1778. In 1779 the erection of a wooden structure matching the shape of the finished bridge allowed the five main iron sections to be put in place, enabling the main elements of construction to be finished by the end of the year. Enormous half sections of the bridge were brought up river from Darby’s iron foundry by boat and craned upright into place. 1780 saw work undertaken to finish the metal structure and construct the roadway across the Severn. The bridge was fully finished by the end of 1780 opening to traffic on New Year’s Day 1781.
The bridge is thought to have used three hundred and seventy eight long tonnes of iron, across 1,700 components, the heaviest of which weighed five long tonnes. While £3,500 had been budgeted the final cost is estimated to have been nearer £6,000.
No sooner had the Iron Bridge been finished than work had to be undertaken to reinforce it. Throughout the 1780s and 1790s work had to be undertaken to put in place reinforcing walls to hold up the riverbanks around the bridge and the strengthen stone abutments that the ironwork sits upon. This said, the Iron Bridge’s brute strength was attested to in 1795 when amidst heavy flooding the structure was the only bridge anywhere along the course of the Severn not to be damaged.
Throughout the 19th Century extensive work was undertaken to maintain the bridge, with the abutments adjoining the Shropshire Severn Gorge’s unstable sides, causing particular problems. There were several quite substantial landslips with parts of the masonry structure collapsing in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. This said surveyor’s reports continued to find that the bridge itself remained sturdy. In 1923 it was recommended that with motor vehicles increasing in both number and weight that use of the bridge be restricted to users weighing less than two tonnes.
As a compromise a four tonne limit was initially imposed, however, with the shear volume of heavily laden lorries leaving the Jackfield Tile Works on the southbank of the Gorge and crossing the structure it was decided in 1934, the same year the Iron Bridge became a Scheduled Ancient Monument, that the bridge would be completely closed to vehicular traffic.
By the middle of the Twentieth Century the Iron Bridge had become very decrepit, its trustees not having any funds to maintain it. In 1950 the bridge was nationalised by Shropshire County Council, who removed pedestrian tolls and in 1956 put forward a serious proposal to demolish and replace it. By this time the nearly two hundred year old bridge, having long been listed, was recognised for its deep historical significance, and none of the proposals between the 1940s and 1970s to demolish or re-site it ever gained traction. Although the 1956 proposal having been brought forward by Shropshire County Council the bridge’s owner was the most likely to have come to pass.
In 1967 the Ironbridge Gorge Heritage Trust was established to research, conserve and present the area’s rich historic industrial legacy. The Trust took on the task of conserving the Iron Bridge which had not received any substantial maintenance, including being painted, since the Victorian era.
Work was primarily undertaken in 1972 and 1975 funded by a mixture of grants from Shropshire County Council, central government bodies and philanthropy. The most dramatic intervention was the installation of reinforced concrete arch beneath the river bed, essentially a doppelganger of the structure above it, designed to counter the forces pushing against the stone abutments. Extensive work was also undertaken to renovate and reinforce the abutments and to lighten the weight of the carriageway upon the bridge structure. After the main works had finished work continued on renovating the Iron Bridge, including a new coat of paint, the first in over eighty years, which was applied in 1980 just in time for the bridge’s bicentennial.
In 1986 the Iron Bridge alongside the rest of the Gorge’s industrial heritage was recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Since then the bridge has undergone a few further minor restorations, most recently in the late 2010s when it was extensively conserved at a cost of £3.6 million. This project included analysis which led to the bridge being repainted a more historically accurate reddish colour, replacing the light blue shade that it had been since 1980. The most recent conservation won a 2020 European Heritage Awards/Europa Nostra Award, recognising it as one of Europe’s most impressive, consequential and significant heritage projects.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk from Telford to Ironbridge in the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge UNESCO World Heritage site, home of 1781’s pioneering Iron Bridge begins at Telford Railway Station.
From the platform head up onto the footbridge which also spans a dual carriageway.
Once, up on the bridge turn left and cross the dual carriageway heading towards a 1980s vintage business park.
On leaving the bridge keep walking straight ahead down a snicket into the centre of the business park.
Presently you come out into the middle of the business park with an office building used by Telford and Wrekin Council on your left.
Turn left and walk down the road towards this office building.
At the corner of the council office building turn right and head up a snicket beside the office block.
Soon you come to a junction. Here, turn left again.
Follow the path as it twists around to another footbridge across a dual carriageway which you cross.
On the far side you are standing in the carpark of the complex of shopping centres that comprises Telford town centre.
Walk across this carpark following the footprint of the shopping centre. This is the best way to cross the carpark because it is very busy.
Soon you reach the far side of the car park. Here turn left and follow the path down to the road below.
Once on the pavement cross the road then turn right.
Quickly having passed beneath a bridge you reach a junction with another larger road.
Here, turn left and walk a short distance down the road.
Soon on the right handside of the road you come to a road running up towards Telford Town Park past Telford International Centre, the town’s main conference centre.
Cross over the road here and head to the right up this road past Telford International Centre.
Soon you reach the edge of Telford Town Park.
Enter Telford Town Park and then head slightly to the right, towards the main pathway through the park.
Turn left and walk straight along this path heading through the park. Soon you reach a road running through the park which you keep walking along passing a zoon on your left.
Presently on your left there is a footpath running downhill off the road.
A little way down this path there is another footpath running off to the right.
Turn right and walk down this footpath.
After some distance you reach a junction. Here turn left and walk downhill towards The Silkin Way.
The Silkin Way is named after Lewis Silkin, the Atlee government minister who passed the New Towns Act, allowing for the establishment of new towns like Telford.
Upon reaching the Silkin Way a former railway line shut in 1964, shortly after the establishment of Telford (or Dawley New Town as it was then called), turn right.
You keep following the former railway line and signs for the Silkin Way all the way to Blists Hill.
As is typical of ex-railway lines it runs pretty straight, crossing a mostly wooded landscape through the suburbs of Telford. Which are interesting in themselves, consisting as they do of blend of modern buildings and old ones constructed during Telford’s pre-history as a mining and quarrying centre.
Presently the path curves around to the left, and you come to an underpass on the right which you walk through.
On the far side of the underpass you cross a bridge over a still working railway line. This one used to carry coal to the old Ironbridge Power Station shutdown and demolished a few years ago. There is talk of opening it up as a passenger railway serving southern Telford.
Soon after the railway line you come to a junction where two paths meet beside some industrial ruins.
Here take the left hand fork running uphill.
Continue along this path approaching Blists Hill museum.
You cross a bridge where the Forester’s Arms pub and a black metal sculpture representing a pit pony pulling a car stand on a roundabout.
Continue a little way beyond this bridge, and soon you pass through an underpass.
On the far side take the path running off to the right across parkland.
This leads you to a pavement running beside a road to the right of the park, just beyond the sign stating that you are entering the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site.
Keep walking down this road some distance until you reach the sign for Blists Hill museum off to your left. Carry on past the museum entrance, crossing the access road.
Just after passing beneath a bridge the footpath stops being a pavement and becomes a fully segregated path running parallel with the road. It comprises part of the gloriously bonkers Monarch’s Way long distance footpath.
This appears to have once been a railway line of some kind, and you soon pass through a short tunnel.
On the far side of the tunnel continue along the path for some distance, as it curves around steadily to the left.
Presently you come to a junction. Here take the lower path to the right heading downhill towards the “Tar Tunnel, China Museum, Ironbridge Museums”.
Soon on your right next to a low hedgerow there is a path running off to the right.
This leads out beside the road through the village of Coalport. Once beside the road turn right, heading west towards the edge of the village.
After a short distance look out on your left for a waymarked opening and a flight of steps down onto a short stretch of preserved “Shropshire Tub Canal” leading away from the Tar Tunnel.
Soon, having walked a very short way along the preserved stretch of canal, you come to a flight of steps up over the footbridge linking the villages of Coalport and Jackfield across the River Severn. The bridge was built in the early 1920s as a memorial to men from the village who died in the First World War.
Climb up the steps, cross the bridge over the river then head down the steps on the other side.
Once on the far side of the river stood opposite The Boat Inn, turn left and begin following the road around.
Presently you reach a junction, here turn right following the road uphill.
Partway up the hillside the road runs beneath an old brick built railway bridge. Immediately after walking beneath it there is a flight of steps up onto the course of the old Severn Valley Railway, the northern section of which through the Shropshire Severn Gorge is now a cycle track. Climb up these steps.
At the top of the steps turn right and begin following the track.
Carry on along the track approaching the main part of the village of Jackfield. Approaching it you reach the road once more, cross here and pick up the pavement on the far side walking past Jackfield’s distinctive little mid-Victorian Anglican church.
Walk through the centre of Jackfield past the former tile factory which is now a museum.
Approaching the edge of the village the road curves around sharply to the right. Straight ahead on the far side of the road there is a set of level crossing gates which mark a way back onto the former Severn Valley Railway path. Cross the road and head down this track.
Carry on walking along the former Severn Valley route, through woodland partway up the Severn Gorge, for some distance.
On the far side of the car park turn right and walk along a short stretch of path approaching the deck of the Iron Bridge.
Presently now approaching the Iron Bridge you enter a car park. Mindful of moving vehicles, walk straight ahead across it.
On the far side of the car park turn right and walk along a short stretch of path approaching the deck of the Iron Bridge.
Use the Iron Bridge to cross the River Severn and reach Ironbridge village.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
At the time of writing in July 2024 the centre of Ironbridge village was served six times a day (with the final bus in each direction between around 17:30 to 18:00) by the 96 bus between Shrewsbury and Telford. Services being on a two hourly basis in each direction apart from the later part of the afternoon when the frequency increases to hourly In the summer of 2024 a “sightseeing bus” ran twice each afternoon between Shrewsbury and Ironbridge, and back again, alongside the usual 96 service. The main other buses running near to the village, but requiring a bit of a walk to reach the stop, were the 8 and 8A. These are more frequent and run later than the 96. They run between Telford and Bridgnorth or Telford and Much Wenlock. Both Telford and Shrewsbury have main line railway stations, as well as buses to destinations across Shropshire and to parts of Staffordshire and Wales, allowing journeys further afield.