The famous Iron Bridge over the Severn, that now gives its name to the town at the northern end.
It was constructed in 1778 from iron girders cast at the Coalbrookdale iron works of Abraham Darby II, a few miles away. My father, who was a civil engineer especially interested in bridges, commented that it was, in its design, a wooden bridge made of cast iron! Because it was the first of its kind in the world, this was inevitable!
Nobody knows precisely how it was erected, since the Severn is particularly fast-flowing between steep banks at this point. It remains a miracle of engineering.
