Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust

Coordinates: 52°38′20″N 2°29′35″W / 52.639°N 2.493°W / 52.639; -2.493

The entrance to Enginuity Museum
One of the large kilns at Coalport China Museum

Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust is an industrial heritage organisation which runs ten museums and manages 35 historic sites within the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, widely considered as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

The Gorge includes a number of settlements important to industrial history and with heritage assets, including Ironbridge, Coalport and Jackfield along the River Severn, and also Coalbrookdale and Broseley. The area is a World Heritage Site (since 1986) and an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).

Museums

The ten museum sites run by the Trust, collectively known as the Ironbridge Gorge Museums are:

  1. Blists Hill Victorian Town, including the Hay Inclined Plane
  2. Broseley Pipeworks
  3. Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron
  4. Coalport China Museum
  5. Coalport Tar Tunnel
  6. Darby Houses
  7. Enginuity
  8. Iron Bridge and Tollhouse
  9. Jackfield Tile Museum
  10. Museum of the Gorge

The Trust

Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust was established in 1968[1] to preserve and interpret the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the Ironbridge Gorge. It is an independent educational charity.[2] From 1970 it absorbed the Coalbrookdale Museum, now the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, which had been established in 1959.[1]

Its present CEO is Anna Brennand, who took over from Steve Miller in 2013. Previous CEOs have included Stuart Smith and Sir Neil Cossons, both well-respected experts on industrial history and archaeology.

The museum staff manage 35 historic sites within the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, including ten museums. The sites also include archaeological sites, two chapels, housing, two Quaker burial grounds, a research library, a tourist information centre, woodland, and two youth hostels.

For over 20 years the museum also had a wide-ranging and innovative archaeology unit[3] which undertook archaeological work within the Ironbridge Gorge and throughout the country. This was disbanded in 2009 along with the loss of many curatorial and other staff.

In recent years the academic and curatorial roles of the Trust have been reduced in favour of its role as a heritage tourism attraction.

Ironbridge Institute

The Trust also runs the Ironbridge Institute in Coalbrookdale, a centre offering postgraduate and professional courses in heritage, in partnership with the University of Birmingham.

References

  1. 1 2 Trinder, Barrie (1981) [1973]. The Industrial Revolution in Shropshire (2nd ed.). Phillimore. p. 242. ISBN 0 85033 428 4.
  2. ↑ Charity Commission. Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Limited, registered charity no. 503717.
  3. ↑ Ironbridge Archaeology
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