Fords and Ferries in Ironbridge

Crossings of the Severn Gorge

The River Severn has always been both a barrier and a lifeline, and nowhere more so than in the Ironbridge Gorge.

For centuries, before the great iron and stone bridges spanned the valley, people relied on shallow fords, ferries, and even coracles to cross its fast-flowing waters.

Each crossing had its own landing stages, ferrymen, and stories — tales of daily toil, family traditions, and the ever-present danger of the river itself.

By the 20th century almost all ferries had disappeared, replaced by permanent bridges, but the memory of these precarious crossings is still deeply woven into the history of the Gorge.

The Fords

The earliest crossings were fords.

Known sites included Buildwas, where there were two, Dale End (opposite where the Museum of the Gorge now stands, crossing towards the later railway viaduct), Coalford, and Gitchfield.

Gitchfield Ford lay further downstream towards Madeley Wood, on a shallower reach of the river between Coalbrookdale and Jackfield; like the others, it was only passable in low water and was hazardous in flood.

A report from 1762 describes a wagon toppling into the river while attempting to use the Dale End ford, showing the dangers even in the 18th century.

The Ferries

By the 17th century at least six ferries were operating along the Severn Gorge between Buildwas and Coalport.

These included Buildwas Ferry, the Meadow Ferry (sometimes known as Benthall Edge), Benthall Ferry at the later site of the Iron Bridge, Jackfield Ferry, the Lloyds Horse Ferry, and the Tuckies Ferry at Coalport.

Each had its own ferrymen, cottages, and stories, passed down through generations.

Buildwas Ferry was among the oldest crossings, linking Buildwas village with the opposite bank.

It was eventually replaced by Buildwas Bridge in 1796, but remained in use into the 19th century.

The ferry house stood as a local landmark.

In January 1916, ferryman William Bird drowned while fastening his boat during a flood, showing how dangerous the river remained even after centuries of use.

The ferry ran from the three cottages beneath Benthall Edge on the south bank (later demolished to make way for the Power Station cooling towers) across to the north bank by the Valley Hotel and the Ironbridge Rowing Club.

Tickets were originally sold in a small office in the Valley Hotel grounds.

Later, the hut was moved into the Beddoes family’s private garden at Bower Yard. Though it is now part of a private residence, the hut can still be seen if you walk along Bower Yard — one of the last physical survivals of the Gorge ferries.

Martha “Granny” Wale operated the ferry around 1904.

In a well-documented incident she was crossing with her grandchildren when the boat slipped.

All were tipped into the river, but she clung to the guide wire and, waist-deep in the Severn, dragged the children to safety — remembered locally as a “marvellous escape.”

Beddoes was as much a local character as he was a ferryman.

Known affectionately as “Boats”, he not only worked the punt but also hired out rowing boats to locals and visitors.

His daughter Florrie grew up in the cottages, with the rhythms of ferrying and boat-hire forming part of everyday life.

Another memory, from PJ Humphreys of Shrewsbury, described travelling as a 4-year-old in 1938–39: the ferry was a punt hauled hand-over-hand along a wire stretched across the river.

Humphreys remembered his grandmother shouting across the water, George rowing over to fetch them, and the thrill of crossing when the Severn was running high.

The fare was remembered as a halfpenny each way.

Children especially recalled the sense of adventure, and the fact that the ferryman would often come only when hailed from the opposite bank.

The ferry’s setting was lively.

Opposite the cottages stood the Ironbridge Rowing Club, and next to it the Regatta Field, where local carnivals and jazz band contests were held.

The Grand Hall, built by the Coalbrookdale Company in the 1920s as a social club, also stood nearby.

Together they made the ferry not just a utility but part of a riverside scene alive with leisure and community.

The cottages were demolished when the power station was built in the 20th century, but the ferry itself carried on working into the 1950s, making it the last operational ferry in the Ironbridge Gorge.

This ferry was a well-used crossing long before the idea of building a bridge was ever raised, and for much of the 17th and 18th centuries it was one of the main ways workers, traders, and families moved between Madeley/Benthall and Coalbrookdale.

This ferry was significant enough that when Abraham Darby III began planning a permanent bridge in the 1770s, he chose the very site of the Benthall ferry landing.

The construction of the Iron Bridge (opened in 1779) made the ferry instantly redundant.

Although little survives in terms of photographs or physical remains, there are strong indications that the ferry was still active right up until bridge works began.

Early travellers’ accounts describe small flat-bottomed punts being worked across at this point, and some early maps still mark a ferry landing.

The Jackfield Ferry was among the oldest in the Gorge.

The Dog & Duck Inn, a long half-timbered building dated 1654 for Adam and Margaret Crumpton, stood right by the landing stage.

The Dog & Duck’s licence was not renewed in 1892, after which the building remained as cottages.

The Crumptons were known ferrymen as early as 1680, and in the 1851 census William Crumpton appears as “proprietor of ferry boat.”

Through marriage, the Balls, Williams, Evans, and Oswells families also became connected to the inn and the ferry.

By the late 19th century Joseph and Mary Oswell were in charge; after Joseph’s death in 1894, Mary ordered a new ferry boat from a builder in Jackfield.

Around 1908–09 the ferry was worked by Francis “Frank” Poole alongside William Harrison, landlord of the Black Swan.

Harrison’s father John had drowned in 1900 while lighting the ferry’s oil lamp, swept away by the current and found weeks later near Bridgnorth.

Frank Poole became one of the last ferrymen here.

Born in 1883, he was remembered as a man of many trades — steeplejack, undertaker, master builder, coracle-man, and ferryman.

His family recalled him rowing relatives across the Severn in a coracle, dog included, though none of them could swim.

In 1909, the opening of the Free Bridge just upstream made the ferry redundant almost overnight.

Cheap, safe, and toll-free, the bridge drew away every passenger.

Poole soon turned to other work, while the ferry faded into memory.

The Dog & Duck itself lingered as cottages before being demolished in 1940.

This was one of the larger ferries, capable of carrying not just passengers but also horses and carts across the Severn.

It served the industries at the Lloyds and nearby communities.

Once the Free Bridge opened in 1909, the horse ferry became unnecessary and soon disappeared.

Perhaps the most historically significant, the Tuckies Ferry connected the Boat Inn at Jackfield with Coalport near the Tar Tunnel.

It was essential after John Rose moved his china works from Caughley and Broseley to Coalport, carrying workers back and forth.

It is remembered above all for the disaster of 23 October 1799.

In thick fog and flood, a ferry boat carrying 41 passengers capsized.

Twenty-eight people drowned, including eleven children.

Three bodies were never recovered; others were found downstream months later.

John Rose personally provided coffins and support for bereaved families, and was “frequently seen to shed tears.”

Many victims were buried at the Red Church, St Mary’s, Jackfield.

In 2019, a 220th-anniversary memorial was held.

Despite the tragedy, the ferry continued.

In 1890, Joseph Crowell, landlord of the Boat Inn, bid £63 for the rights to run it.

In 1907 ferryman Levi Doughty wrote to the press, warning he might stop operating because the landings were unlit and unsafe; another letter urged the building of a footbridge.

That appeal was finally answered in 1922, when the Jackfield Memorial Footbridge opened and the ferry ceased.

Before any bridge spanned the river at Coalport, there was a ferry at Preens Eddy, also known as the Woodbridge Ferry.

This was one of the Gorge’s older crossings, carrying workers and traders between the Broseley side and Coalport/Blists Hill side.

In 1780, a timber bridge known as the Wood Bridge was built at the same spot to replace the ferry.

It was a bold attempt at a permanent structure, but the design was short-lived: within a few decades it decayed badly under the Severn’s floods and constant wear.

Because of that, the Wood Bridge was replaced by the present Coalport Bridge in 1818 — a cast-iron structure that still stands today.

The ferry itself disappears from records as soon as the wooden bridge was in place, but its importance was that it fixed Preens Eddy as the key crossing point for that stretch of the Gorge.

Coracles

Alongside the official ferries, many locals crossed the river in their own coracles — small, round, tarred boats, light enough to be carried home on a man’s back.

They were a long-standing tradition on the Severn, used for fishing as well as for quick personal crossings.

Families would keep them in sheds or lean-tos along the riverbank.

One such shed still survives today on the south bank near the Iron Bridge.

Weathered but intact, it is one of the last physical survivals of the Severn coracle tradition.

It reminds us that while ferries had timetables, fares, and ferrymen, the coracle was for private and often precarious crossings — a man’s boat on his back, launched whenever the need arose.

Stories of coracle use show both the danger and the ordinariness of life on the Severn.

Frank Poole of Coalport, remembered also as a ferryman, steeplejack, and undertaker, would take his family across in a coracle, with his children, wife, and even the family dog aboard.

None of them could swim, but they trusted the light tarred frame to get them over.

Even after the ferries closed in the early 20th century, coracles remained tied to the Gorge’s identity.

Today, the Ironbridge Coracle Trust preserves that history, keeping alive a craft that once made the Severn both a working river and a lived-in one.

The Bridges that Replaced the Ferries

By the early 20th century the ferries were obsolete, replaced by permanent structures:

• Iron Bridge (1779) – replaced the Benthall Ferry.

• Wooden Bridge at Preens Eddy (1780) – replaced the Preens Eddy ferry; itself replaced by Coalport Bridge.

• Buildwas Bridge (1796) – replaced the Buildwas Ferry and fords.

• Coalport Bridge (1818) – replaced the failing Wooden Bridge.

• Free Bridge (1909) – replaced Jackfield Ferry and the Lloyds Horse Ferry.

• Jackfield Memorial Footbridge (1922) – replaced the Tuckies Ferry.

By then, only the Meadow/Benthall Edge ferry lingered on, finally closing in the 1950s.

Its cottages are gone, its ferrymen long passed, but its story — and the stories of every crossing — still hangs over the waters of the Gorge.