Design and Technology
Coalbrookdale and the Ironbridge Gorge have been the centre of innovative design and technological development for centuries. Many of the museums of the Gorge offer your students the opportunity to develop and extend their skills in investigating, evaluating, designing and making through a range of practical tasks.
Designing and Evaluating
Enginuity in Coalbrookdale is the obvious choice when encouraging children to investigate and evaluate everyday items. There are four different sections: Power & Energy, Materials & Structures, Systems & Control and Design, each containing interactive displays. To develop their design skills a step further the museum offers a number of challenging workshops.
Skills and Techniques
The Museums are also venues for a number of practical skills developed by local craftsmen over the last two hundred years. At Blists Hill Victorian Town students can see traditional industries such as printing, tinsmithing, blacksmithing, plaster casting, woodworking, leatherworking, candle making and cooking. The foundry usually casts iron on Wednesday (please telephone to confirm).
At Jackfield Tile Museum students can tour the factory to see how fine clay powder is transformed into decorative ceramic tiles.
At Coalport China Museum students can see the fashion of decorative china has changed over the years. Demonstrators are on hand to show students how the china clay was used to create flowers, plates and pots using a variety of techniques including slip casting, jigger and jollying and throwing.
Art and Design
Using the sites and monuments of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum as inspiration for art and design is a tradition established by the likes of Turner in the 18th Century and Piper in the 20th Century.
All the Museums provide a safe, varied environment to inspire pupils’ own work.
Visit the China Museum at Coalport to understand the commercial possibilities of quality art and design. The displays demonstrate the way designs alter reflecting changing tastes and fashions.
Across the river is the Jackfield Tile Works Museum, the worlds largest tile manufacturers in 1883. Here are examples of some of the best Victorian floor and wall tiles from all the major producers.
Fashion and Design
Rosehill House, once the home of the Coalbrookdale Company Managers, holds a wealth of examples of Victorian style from wallpaper to furniture, tableware and costume. At the Museum of Iron pupils can examine the variety of art castings in bronze and iron, many of which were produced as examples of work to display at the Great Exhibition in 1851.
See Workshops for Clay modelling, tile decorating and Intaglio Printing
History
The Industrial Revolution
The Iron Bridge, one of the most recognisable symbols of the Industrial Revolution represents a period of social and economic change brought about through imagination and innovation. The landscape and communities of the Ironbridge Gorge have been shaped by the industries established here during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Coalbrookdale (Museum of Iron and Darby Furnace) is the historical heart of the Ironbridge Gorge. The ironmasters and workers of the Gorge were at the forefront of the revolutionary industrial developments. The original blast furnace from 1709 is preserved opposite the Museum of Iron where a large model shows Coalbrookdale in 1805, when the ironworks were at their most influential internationally. The 1851 Great Exhibition display shows examples of the decorative cast iron work Coalbrookdale became famous for during the 19th century. Objects from all these periods as well as information about all the major innovators, including the Darby dynasty, are on display.
See Resources.
Blists Hill Victorian Town has a fully equipped wrought ironworks that rolls iron and a small foundry which casts iron. (please telephone for details of when you can see these processes).
The Quaker Connection (Darby Houses and Quaker Burial Ground)
Dale House from where Abraham Darby III supervised the building of the famous iron bridge. Rosehill House seen furnished in mid Victorian style concentrates on the domestic and religious story of the later Darbys. Both houses contain furniture, paintings and personal belongings of the Darby family. Visiting groups are limited to a maximum of 12 pupils at a time in each house.
See Resources.
Further up the hill from the Darby Houses is the Quaker Burial Ground where many prominent members of the Society of Friends were buried.
The Victorians (1837-1901)
A period of great social and economic change in Britain. A number of our museum sites can help your pupils gain insight into urbanisation, public health, education and the revolutionary changes in manufacturing and transport.
Working Life/Working Community
At Blists Hill Victorian Town costumed demonstrators undertake domestic chores such as washing and cooking as well as small trades like printing and candle making. They recreate the feel of a small industrial, mining town.
See Resources.
Economic History
The Museum of the Gorge provides an insight into how and why the area became the most industrialised region in the world, its decline and what it has become now.
A visit to the Coalport China Museum (1796-1926), world famous for its decorative table and ornamental ware or Jackfield Tile Museum (1874- 1960) housed in an original, purpose built factory, will help children understand the factory system and explore the ideas of the division of labour, mass production and the effects these had on the workers.
The Tar Tunnel gives another opportunity to see how the natural resources of the Gorge were fundamental to the economy of the area. The tunnel was dug to connect the canal to the mines at Blists Hill but the bitumen that was discovered proved to be more lucrative. (Visits are restricted to 12 students at a time and hard hats are provided).
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