Author: Ironbridge Images

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.

This narrow road bridge crosses the Hay Inline Plane at Coalport. Most people probably don’t even give it a thought, apart from when they have to give way to oncoming traffic, but the bridge dates from around 1792, the same time that the Hay Incline Plane was built, due to the bridge crossing it, at the point that it meets the Shropshire Canal at its low level, adjacent to the river Severn.

The bridge is a Grade II Listed Building and the small building to the left must, judging by its orientation and layout, have originally been a toll house. For many years it was the village shop but more recently has been a barbers, and now a hair-dressing salon.

In 1801, the chain pulling an empty tub boat and cradle up the incline snapped, sending both hurtling into the canal just below the bridge, destroying another three tub boats in the canal. Shortly afterwards, wire ropes replaced the chains because these were less likely to become worn and snap.

The last recorded use of the incline plane was in 1894 and it formally closed in 1907. The original tracks were removed and the incline became overgrown – the tracks laid on the incline today are merely a re-creation of what they were – in reality, the centre of each track would have rollers to support the wire ropes pulling the tub boat and cradle up the incline.

Set back from the road, on the Wharfage at Ironbridge, are these three arches which, from studying a map from 1882, are most likely to be lime kilns.

Limestone was commonly used in iron smelting as a flux to remove impurities. However, only the highest quality limestone was used for this purpose and the lower quality was burned in kilns, such as these, to produce quicklime which was used in building mortar and lime wash. The kilns operated at 900 degrees Centigrade and would have filled the air with noxious fumes that would have hung over the river, making it an unpleasant place to be.