Coalport bridge and toll houses.
Coalport
The Free Bridge of Jackfield
Jackfield
Coalport & Jackfield Memorial Bridge
Coalport
The Toll house
Ironbridge
Images in this collection
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Albert Edward Bridge
About 1910
This colourised postcard from around 1910 frames the Albert Edward railway bridge, opened in 1864, with an old-fashioned rowing boat drifting on the water beneath it. The juxtaposition wasn't accidental for the photographer: it captures, in a single image, the old world of the ferry crossing being quietly overtaken by iron, steam and the railway age.
Colourised postcard
Cottages below the Albert Edward Bridge
About 1910
Riverside cottages at Coalbrookdale huddle in the shadow of the Albert Edward railway bridge in this colourised postcard from around 1910. These modest homes have since been demolished, and this image is now one of the few visual records of a community that once lived and worked in the very shadow of Coalbrookdale's great ironworks.
Colourised postcard
Rowing boats below the Iron Bridge
Early 1900s
Pleasure boats are drawn up on the shingle beneath the world-famous Iron Bridge in this sepia postcard from the early 1900s. Even decades after the bridge opened in 1781, the riverbank beneath it remained working ground for boatmen and traders, a detail easily missed beneath the more famous structure looming above.
Sepia postcard
The Wharfage and the Iron Bridge
Late 19th century
Looking along the Wharfage toward the Iron Bridge in this late Victorian view, a barge sits moored hard against the wharf wall, where goods were once loaded straight from the riverside warehouses. It's a scene of unglamorous, everyday commerce, taking place in full view of what would become one of Britain's most photographed landmarks.
Archive photograph, photographer unknown
Crossing from Ironbridge to Jackfield
Before 1909
Photographed sometime before 1909, this scene shows the crossing from Ironbridge to Jackfield, with the gas works visible in the background — later a defining Jackfield landmark. This particular crossing would soon be made redundant by the construction of the Free Bridge, ending centuries of ferry use at this exact spot.
Archive photograph, photographer unknown
The last run of the ferries
1909
The newly completed bridge at Jackfield stands finished in this 1909 photograph, while the last of the old ferry boats is circled on the water below it, almost as an afterthought. It marks, quite precisely, the moment a centuries-old river trade came to an end, replaced overnight by fixed iron and stone.
Annotated archive photograph