Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale was the name of the whole valley until the Iron Bridge was built in 1779. It was famous for its ironworking, its foundry skills and its natural resources, coal, clay, iron and lime. The Coalbrook still runs down the western part of what is now called the Ironbridge Gorge meeting the River Severn at the bottom of the Dale. Mostly it is culverted, but in the 18^th and 19^th century the water courses were more open and supplied the various cooling pools which served the ironworks.
The Coalbrookdale Inn, built around 1830-40, has been a pub since 1843. It was probably built to serve the workforce from the famous Coalbrookdale ironworks in the valley. 1843 was also the year when the clock tower on the Great Warehouse of the Coalbrookdale Company was erected. This building is now the Museum of Iron, opened in 1979 by HRH The Prince of Wales, in the bi-centenary year of the Iron Bridge itself.

The Coalbrookale Inn, like most of the other pubs in the Gorge, brewed its own beer. Today only one pub in Madeley, on the eastern side of the World Heritage Site, still does so.

The Inn is a Grade II listed building, with four brick chimney stacks and clay pots. In common with many of the Coalbrookdale buildings it has cast iron guttering, but is larger than houses of this type and departs from a standard design in size (4 bays) and detail (hipped roof).

It has wonderful views from the frontage, looking towards the 18^th century houses built by the famous Quaker ironmaster Darby family, two of which, Dale House and Darby House, are open to the public. The original Darby Furnace is opposite the pub, in the Museum of Iron grounds: this is where Abraham Darby I perfected the use of coke in ironsmelting in 1709. This led to the industrial revolution in the 18^th century and to the rapid growth of the Coalbrookdale ironworks, which the Inn served.
Coalbrookdale was at the height of its fame in the mid-19^th century, exporting iron goods all over the world as well as to the rest of the UK. Visitors came from far afield to look at the ironworks and the inns in the district benefited from their visits!

Ironworkers who would have drunk at the Inn would have worked long and hot hours. One later customer might have been Billy Wright's father, in the early 20^th century, since he worked at the ironworks as a moulder and Billy was born in Ironbridge.

The Coalbrookdale Company showed off at the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace but in the latter part of that century Coalbrookdale gradually declined, leaving the buildings and monuments to their own fate. The birth of Telford New Town in the late 1960s gave it a new lease of life and the Museums sprang up around the Gorge to the benefit of the many pubs in the valley.