Ironbridge Gorge Heritage Status Is An Expensive Business

Heritage comes in many forms, and it may be understandable, yet a little surprising to find that the Ironbridge Gorge falls into the same category as the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids. Yet in these financially conscious times, everything has to pay its way, and the fiscal spotlight has been shone in some very strange places over recent years.

It has never been a priority that sites with UNESCO Heritage status should have to “pay their way”, as they were preserved for the benefit of the nation, but figures suggest that although the actual Abraham Darby III iron bridge is still in fine fettle, the same cannot be said for the surrounding Ironbridge Gorge, which has a fragile landscape, having suffered from  landslides, floods and even collapsed houses and roads.

Engineers are saying that to protect the gorge even for the immediate future could cost more than £80m, which brings into question as to whether it is worth doing. Telford and Wrekin Council said it had a commitment to protect the area, while Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust said it was important to remember it was not simply "a theme park", but "people's homes".

"You can assess the likelihood [of a landslide], depending on rainfall and other triggers, but you can never say 'We're going to expect one tomorrow, or in a week or in a year'," Neal Rushton, from the local authority, said. It is his team who are responsible for monitoring, countering and repairing ground movement falls

"We've got 300 years of records, but landslides have been happening in the gorge for 10,000 years, so it feels like we're still doing a bit of crystal ball gazing," he said.

Because of the volatility of ground and weather conditions, the local authority also has to prepare for a major emergency, even though it said gradual ground movements were far more likely. There are evacuation centres and warning pamphlets, although the authority said "major events" in the gorge typically happened every 30 to 50 years, with the most recent occurring in the 1980s, when houses collapsed in Jackfield and Salthouse Road and fell into the river.

Next year’s stabilisation works will remove the “temporary” wooden road set up at that time, and will include metal piles being driven into the ground to anchor it in place. The banks of the River Severn will be reinforced to prevent erosion. By the time the latest work is completed in three years time, some £33m will have been spent on shoring up the gorge since 2001.

According to former chairman of English Heritage Sir Neil Cossons, far more will be needed in the coming years. One of the team who put together the original bid for UNESCO, Sir Neil said the site "absolutely deserved" to be protected, not just for Telford, but the nation as a whole. “The very activity that earned Ironbridge its place among the world's most important heritage sites has, however, also contributed to its problems.” Mr Rushton confirmed this, saying that his teams regularly came across old mine workings.

Senior curator of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums, Matt Thompson, said there was practically "guerrilla mining" in the gorge during the 18th Century. "Two or three blokes would work a seam on some land they had permission on. They'd dig a hole and work it for as long as they could," he said.

The mines grew up around the blast furnaces and iron casting sites that set Britain on the road to becoming the world's first industrial power.

So it can be seen that if the Gorge was a business, it would be close to bankruptcy now. As a comparison Stonehenge costs about £2.4m a year to run, but brings in £6m in revenue.
Ironbridge Gorge is an icon of Britain’s Industrial history. The area's claim as the birthplace of the industrial revolution is largely based on Abraham Darby I's pioneering use of coke, rather than charcoal, to smelt iron in 1709.

Ironbridge is named after Abraham Darby III’s bridge, the world’s first iron structure, built in 1779, and became an immediate hit with 18th Century tourists. The world's first steam locomotive was built in the area in 1803.

                                                              http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/