As I mentioned in a previous post; Secret Ironbridge – Great Western Railway, in 2003 I embarked on a project to photograph all 25 of the bridges in the Ironbridge Gorge. Only one of them is no longer standing, but the remains of its abutments can still just be seen, not far from the Maws tile works in Jackfield (see Secret Ironbridge – Maw or less).
The bridge itself was the victim of land slippage, which eventually led to significant stabilisation groundworks in 2015. At the time, the remains of the bridge were earmarked for removal, but they were saved at the last minute.
Originally, the bridge only carried the single-track GWR through-line, but in about 1910, a siding was extended over the bridge, although it is not clear if it was widened to accommodate this.
The bridge was built to cross a lane that provided access to Wallace Colliery, a very small coal mine that opened in the 1800s and is believed to include pits called ‘Bonny’ and ‘Jolly’. In the 1880s, attention turned to extracting clay, and Wallace Tileries was born on the same site, which quickly expanded, with a large building and even its own incline plane, tramway and railway siding linked to the GWR line. It was reputed to be the first roof tile works in the world with a tunnel kiln. It was short-lived; it had declined by 1920 and closed in the late 1930s, possibly due to the clay pits being exhausted.
There were some who believed that the closure, and subsequent cessation of pumping water from the pits, may have contributed to a significant landslide in 1952, when 27 dwellings were destroyed, as the ground on which they were built moved some 60 feet (18 metres) towards the river (the mines are directly above the area that was affected). There was, allegedly, an underground lake that could be seen down one of the pits. Perhaps unsurprisingly, official reports claim that this lack of pumping was unlikely to have caused the disaster.
Was the location of the tileries in relation to the landslide a coincidence? What do you think?
There is an interesting British Pathé news clip about the landslide on YouTube here, which also blames the cessation of pumping for the disaster.
Despite some considerable searching, I cannot find a photograph of the original bridge. It is very possible, given that the railway crossed the narrow lane at right angles, that it was a ready-made metal bridge laid on top of the brick abutments, similar to one that will be discussed in a later Secret Ironbridge blog post.
But that’s later; the next Secret Ironbridge blog post will be a little more ecclesiastical.
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