Homes plan for former Aga casting works in Ironbridge Gorge

The Coalbrookdale Works saw “almost continuous metal casting” for more than three centuries until its closure in 2017.

Shropshire Homes Ltd has applied to build a 30-flat block and 48 new houses on the nine-acre site, in addition to converting a former warehouse into 20 maisonettes and refitting the Grade-II listed Power House and Pattern Shop into three more homes.

The Gorge Parish Council will be consulted, and Telford and Wrekin Council’s planning department will make a decision at a later date.

The plans submitted by Shropshire Homes include 189 parking spaces and say the estate would – like the Aga Rayburn factory site that preceded it – be accessed from Wellington Road.

A design statement submitted by the Shrewsbury-based company says: “Around the centre of the site is a single-storey office building which served as a reception point from the single vehicular and pedestrian access.

“South of this lies the substantial derelict structure of the former Iron Goods warehouse, more commonly known as the ‘Wing Shed’ because of its Second World War role as a place of assembly for wings of the Lancaster bomber aircraft.

Proposals

“Located close to the heart of the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, which commemorates the site of the first of the Abraham Darby the First furnaces, this is a significant development site.

“This is so because, until closure in 2017, it was where almost continuous metal casting took place for circa 340 years.

“The peak scale of these operations have made the Coalbrookdale foundry site one of the largest single brownfield sites to come forward for re-use in the World Heritage Site.

“The proposed redevelopment design for this site by the Shropshire Homes project team has been informed by the analysis and understanding of the site’s history that has come through the pre-application conversation with key stakeholders.”

The application also says the Wing Shed will be restored to the external appearance it had when originally built as a warehouse around 1901.

It states: “Various later additions will be removed and a new west-facing elevation created to restore a sense of integrity to the primary east-facing wall, which will be restored as part of a development comprising two-storey maisonettes.”

At the north end of the site, the listed “Power House”, which once housed a generator, “will be converted to two dwellings in a semi-detached format,” the statement says, adding that a separate building next door would be extended and converted into a single house.