If you visit Ironbridge by car, you may well follow the signs to Ironbridge Central car park and wonder why it has that name, given that it really isn’t ‘central’ to anything.
This was a name dreamt up by the illustrious Telford & Wrekin Council, but the car park is still known by locals as ‘Station Yard car park’. Why? Because it is on the site of a long-gone railway station on the Great Western Railway (GWR) line.
It was named Broseley and Iron Bridge station on the basis that, at the time it was built in 1862, the majority of the stations passengers came from nearby Broseley, which had a much larger population than around the bridge. During its life the name changed several times (perhaps by grammatical pedants) and was called:
- Ironbridge and Broseley
- Iron Bridge and Broseley
- Iron-Bridge and Broseley
Apart from the single-storey station building adjacent to the bridge, there were two platforms, a a lattice footbridge connecting them, a substantial signal box, numerous sidings and a goods shed. There was also a level crossing (the remains of the track can still be seen) controlling traffic crossing the bridge.
A map of 1883 shows that, just 20 years after it opened, the station yard was a busy place and subsequent maps show that the layout remained largely unchanged throughout its 101 years life.
The rise in popularity of the motor car (and road transport in general) meant that the railways went into decline after the Second World War and eventually the line closed in 1963. Many blame the infamous Beeching Report for the lines closure but, in reality, its future had already been decided due to lack of use.
Overlooking the Station Yard is the aptly-name Station Hotel (now a restaurant called D’arcy’s at the Station), an imposing Grade II-listed, blue-brick, three-storey building originating at the same time as the railway.
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