Festival-goers take step back in time

A "time travelling" boat took to the waters of the River Severn as part of the stunning celebrations to mark the fifth Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Festival.

The unusual craft, called The Time Machine and built by London-based artist Theo Price, made its inaugural journey down the River Severn to its mooring position in the centre of Ironbridge last night as part of the festival launch.

It will remain there until tomorrow afternoon.

The Iron Bridge was illuminated using a combination of white low energy light bulbs as part of the launch, along with coloured theatrical lights and The Museum of The Gorge was also lit with special effects.

Paul Gossage, director of marketing at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, said the launch of the festival had been "grand".

He said: "Everyone was amazed to see Ironbridge awash with colour and light".

Telford & Wrekin Council's arts development team commissioned the piece of artwork to help celebrate Ironbridge Gorge's World Heritage past, present and future.

Mr Price's artwork is a boat measuring 9m by 3m and 1m high.

A council spokeswoman said: "Young people aged seven to 19, from school and out of school community groups, have helped by designing and making features for the boat and have also learned about world heritage and the significance of the Ironbridge Gorge site through a series of workshops.

"GKN Sankey has built an environmentally-friendly base for the boat based on Theo's design at their Hadley factory."

Steve Norgrove, GKN Autostructures managing director, said: "This project helps us to celebrate our 250th Anniversary of the engineering heritage of GKN and we are pleased that our special landmark is shared by the local celebrations at the World Heritage Site."nextpagenextpagenextpagenextpage