A Friday to Friday let gave the option of a weekend stay on the way home. We made perhaps the unusual choice of staying in the new town of Telford; an amalgamation of a number of neighbouring Shropshire towns centred on a large shopping centre…
The main attraction of Telford was its proximity to Iron Bridge gorge and its associated museums. Above is Iron Bridge itself.
The Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron.
(L) The extraordinary “Deerhound table”. (R) Once at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, Coalbrookdale is mostly a museum to its former industry. An exception is the Aga/Rayburn foundry, still operating in the valley.
(L) The preserved remains of the “Old Furnace” used by Abraham Darby I to develop coke-fuelled iron smelting. The move away from charcoal was key to the large scale production of iron. (R) A strange melding of the railway viaduct with the existing foundry buildings.
(L) Bottle kiln and (R) work shop at Broseley Pipeworks. Unprepossessing from the outside, the museum is a fascinating time capsule of one of the last factories to make clay pipes.
Shrewsbury
(L) Shrewsbury Abbey and (R) the old market hall from a passing visit to Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire.