Slipping into the past in a place on the move
The Jackfield area has been subject in recent years of a hugely expensive scheme to stabilise the ground. But as this photo shows, landslip problems in the Ironbridge Gorge - and in the Ironbridge area itself - are nothing new.
This is an old postcard from collector Ray Farlow of Bridgnorth and is captioned "Workmen on the Slip at Madeley Wood, 1910." We don't have the exact details of this particular event, or the precise date, but as the trees in the background are not in leaf, it must have been around winter time.
The Madeley Wood area is what a lot of people would now term to be part of Ironbridge. If anybody knows what happened there in 1910, do drop us a line, but we do have information on some similar landslips in the area.
There have been various examples of a continuing problem of ground movement and in February 1930 a feature appeared in the Express & Star which said starkly that "Ironbridge, Shropshire, is slowly sliding into the River Severn."
It did however reassure its readers that the movement was leisurely and it might take hundreds, or even thousands of years.
Nevertheless, there were abundant signs of the problem with cracked and bulging walls, subsiding roadways, and crumbling footpaths.
The Primitive Methodist Chapel standing on Madeley Hill was no longer used as it was unsafe, the article said.
Road subsidence on the hill caused frequent bursts of gas and water mains.
So that's the slow, imperceptible movement, but there have been more dramatic events.
On December 19, 1939, a landslide at Styches Mount, Wesley Road, Ironbridge, caused a family living at 5 Lloyds Road to abandon their home.
It was the home of a Mr and Mrs Humphries and their son and daughter and the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News of December 23 reported: “On Monday evening the wall of the kitchen started to crack and Mrs Humphries was up at 5 o’clock the next morning inspecting the outside of the house with the aid of a shaded candle. At dinner time on Tuesday the wall of the kitchen crashed in and it was fortunate that no-one was in there at the time.
“The family decided to get out of the house as quickly as possible and all the furniture was removed.”
Another landslide on March 23, 1941, which hit Rock Cottage, Lincoln Hill, Ironbridge, seems to have been the result of old limestone workings.
At the end of 1967 a cottage in Ironbridge is said to have been unceremoniously dumped as a heap of rubble across the B4379 near the old police station.
Then there’s Ironbridge C of E School, which was known as the Ironbridge Blue School, which was hit by subsidence in 1969 and closed, the children being transferred elsewhere.
