Museum trust celebrates Heritage Open Days and Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Festival

There will be free access to Enginuity, Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron and the Darby Houses for this weekend only. The Old Furnace and the Coalbrookdale Gallery are free of charge year-round. In addition, the Trust, a heritage conservation and education charity, will host a range of free hands-on activities, talks and events to bring the history of the Gorge to life, including clay flower making, bridge building, clay pipe making demonstrations, clothes design and printing. The Trust will also use the weekend to present the findings of research it has carried out with its academic partners.

In Enginuity, inspired by the Iron Bridge nearby, children will be able to take part in bridge building sessions. In the new space at Enginuity dedicated to costume, visitors will have the chance to design a patchwork outfit inspired by the ravishing Reuse and Recycle dress and train made from hundreds of fabric scraps by the Trust’s Costume Project team. Visitors will also have the opportunity to try intaglio printing with Birmingham City University PhD student Rosie Smith, who has been researching promotion and advertising in the past using the historic catalogues of the Coalbrookdale Company.

In the Darby Houses, Interpretation Curator Kyla Hislop will demonstrate how the historic kitchen of Rosehill House would have been used when it was the Darby family home and show how to make fruits from marzipan. Children and adults alike will have the chance to try on replica historic costume.

As visitors walk around the Old Furnace, they will experience a sound installation produced by Nathan Tromans, Head of Art and Design from Birmingham City University, in partnership with young people volunteering with the Trust. The sound installation will bring to life the Old Furnace with sounds of the Gorge now, transformed to allow for a reflective and imaginative interpretation, which hints at how it might have been experienced when it was in operation more than 300 years ago.

In the Covered Bays (located outside Enginuity) visitors will have the chance to try making flowers from clay and see demonstrations of traditional clay pipe making. Here, members of Telford’s Caribbean community will be invited to bring their original documents including letters, photos and passports to be scanned and presented on ‘Back A Yard’ boards. The display will be part of an initiative developed in the West Midlands by Dr Pedro Cravinho at Birmingham City University to collate information about the Caribbean community in the West Midlands.

Visitors will be able to take part in guided tours available to explore the Trust’s Coalbrookdale sites.

Academics from higher education institutions including the University of Liverpool, Keele University and the University of Wolverhampton will also present the findings of research carried out in partnership with the Trust to enrich its knowledge of the history of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Ironbridge Gorge.

In the Coalbrookdale Gallery, there will be an opportunity to see From Stars to Cells: The Life of Iron, the Trust’s temporary exhibition for 2024. This free temporary exhibition explores the science of iron, taking visitors on a journey from iron's origins in space billions of years ago through to its use by humankind and in the Ironbridge Gorge. On Saturday only, members of Wolverhampton Astronomical Society will be on hand to give visitors the opportunity to see up close modern telescopes and find out more about space and stars.

Nick Booth, Collections & Learning Director at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, said: “We’re delighted to take part again in the Heritage Open Days and Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Festival. This special weekend is an opportunity for people who don’t already know the Trust to come and visit our museums in Coalbrookdale for free.

“Working with our partners, we will be offering a wide range of fun and educational events that will help visitors of all ages learn about different aspects of the history of the Ironbridge Gorge. This will include presenting the latest research taking place at our museums, showing how our knowledge of the Gorge and the activities that have taken place here is always expanding.”

The full programme of events and activities will be available in advance on the Trust's website: ironbridge.org.uk

By Sarah Watson - Contributor