The Ironbridge Gorge
Shropshire, England


The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Ironbridge nestles on the banks of the River Severn, dominated by the Iron Bridge itself. A quirk of geological fate gave Ironbridge its place in history.
It just happens that all the ingredients for making high quality iron were exposed in the area some fifteen thousand years ago. Melting water from beneath a glacier carved the steep-sided gorge, and cut down into layers of coal, limestone and iron ore. So, when modern man came along, all the material he needed for iron smelting was easily accessible to him, in large quantities.
The valley sides rise steeply from 40 m at river level to over 140 m on the plateau above. The rapid downcutting by this subglacial river steepened the valley sides so much that they became unstable. Landslides are still occurring to this day.
Text courtesy of the Shropshire Geology Group
Nominated by: Stuart Fewtrell (Facebook)
Related Links
More Information
For more information on the geology of this area, see the Shropshire Geology Group’s Geotrail Leaflets on the Ironbridge Gorge, and the nearby geosite ‘The Wrekin’ which features in the Landscape category.
Images (top to bottom):
- The Iron Bridge © Keith Havercroft (Source Geograph.org.uk) Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
- Ironbridge Gorge
October 13 - 21
Theme: 'Earth Science in our lives'