Secret Ironbridge: The impostor

This narrow cast-iron footbridge crosses the Shropshire Canal close to the Coalport China Works.

Although it looks original, it is actually an impostor, and was brought in from the Shrewsbury Canal at Long Lane near Wellington when this section of the Shropshire Canal was restored in the 1970’s. When you think about it, this canal was built for an industrial purpose – to transfer tub boats of coal on the Transhipment Interchange from the canal, to the river – and the last thing that the barge haulers would need would be another bridge crossing over the canal, limiting the height of the load on the tub boat and snagging the rope used to pull it. There was a bridge, but this was at the entrance to the Coalport China Works.

Here is an Ordnance Survey map from 1881 and I have placed a red line in the approximate position of this impostor bridge. As a point of interest, prior to the 1890s the buildings on Ordnance Survey maps were coloured; carmine (pink) for buildings of brick or stone, and grey for buildings of wood or metal. The colour was applied by hand, either by boys or women, paid on a piece-work basis.