Motor Racing in the Gorge

The Wolverhampton & District Automobile Club held a hill climb on Coalport Hill, the road rising from Coalport Bridge towards Broseley. The Birmingham Daily Gazette reported the event on 13 July 1908.

The course was approximately 1,000 yards long, with a gradient as steep as 1 in 7.7. Thirty-two entrants were divided into five classes. The marques represented included De Dion, Clement-Talbot, Humber, Austin, Napier and Sunbeam.

An Edwardian hill climb was a contest against the clock. Each competitor had to carry speed up a sustained gradient, and Coalport Hill’s steep road made the climb itself the test. The recorded winners included E. Lisle jun. in a Royal Starling, G. A. Phillips on a Coventry-Humber, R. Croskery in a Belsize and W. H. Cook in a Sunbeam.

Two years later the Wolverhampton & District Automobile Club brought its hill-climbing competition to Benthall Bank. Contemporary newspapers called the course Ironbridge Hill. Both club and open competitions were held, placing the Gorge on the sporting pages of the Shrewsbury Chronicle, the Bridgnorth Journal and The Sphere.

The photographs show how completely the public road became the course: a racing car on the incline, spectators gathered along its edges, and the buildings of Ironbridge immediately behind. Dr J. L. Kirk competed in a 16-h.p. Talbot. The Sphere reproduced him climbing the hill in its issue of 17 September 1910. Other period archive photographs previously identified with the article show R. Lisle finishing on a bare rim, Bird’s Napier climbing and crowds pressed against the walls of Ironbridge.

The competition and results

C. A. Bird made the fastest ascent in a Napier, recording 1 minute 9.2 seconds. The contemporary reports also name A. J. Cox in a Riley, E. Lisle jun. in a Briton, L. Coatalen in a Sunbeam, A. E. Ryder in a Humber and H. Bradley in a Briton. The earlier article transcription gave Lisle’s initial as K.; the supplied Shrewsbury Chronicle cutting prints E. Lisle, jun.

• A. J. Cox won the open event in class 1 in a Riley.
• E. Lisle jun. won the corresponding club event in a Briton.
• L. Coatalen won the open and club events in class 3 in a Sunbeam.
• C. A. Bird won the open event in class 5 in a Napier.
• A. E. Ryder won the club event in class 5 in a Humber.
• H. Bradley recorded the fastest time by a club member not connected with the motor trade, in a Briton.
• Dr J. L. Kirk won the G. H. Evans Trophy in a Talbot.

The trophies

The Bridgnorth Journal described a substantial programme of awards. The Star Trophy, valued at £25, was presented by the Star Engineering Co Ltd. A medal from Mr A. F. Bird MP was awarded for the best handicap performance in each of the five classes.

The open handicap carried a Sunbeam Trophy offered by the Sunbeam Motor Car Ltd, with further medals from Mr Bird. The report also listed an R.A.C. medal for the best performance on formula, the G. H. Evans Trophy for an eligible club member’s best performance on formula, and a medal from Mr J. O. Evans for the fastest time by an eligible club member. L. Coatalen won both the Star and Sunbeam trophies and a class 2 medal.

In May 1911 the Sutton Coldfield Automobile Club held its own event on Coalport Hill. It was announced in the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News on 13 May, with results printed on 27 May, and included both cars and motorcycles.

The toll road climbed through a skew bridge before reaching a 120-degree hairpin near the summit. Contemporary reporting described the course as being “inches deep in dust” and recorded that many riders fell: “Half the lightweight class fell.”

The existing results name the motorcycle winners as H. V. Colver on an Enfield, H. Waldren on a Triumph, J. Woodhouse on a Precision and W. D. South on an Indian.

The Wolverhampton club returned to the Ironbridge course in July 1911. Reporting the competition on 29 July, the Ludlow Advertiser described Benthall Bank as “a stony and somewhat tricky hill”.

There were twenty-seven entries, though the report said only fifteen competed. Its recorded winners were C. J. Newey in a De Dion, L. Coatalen in a Sunbeam, A. J. Hancock in a Vauxhall, H. G. Barford in a Humber and C. A. Bird in a Napier. Bird again set the fastest time.

The surviving photographs are evidence of a form of motor sport still closely tied to the everyday landscape. The Benthall Bank climb ran on the steep road out of Ironbridge; Coalport Hill rose from Coalport Bridge towards Broseley.

In the images, competitors share the scene with roadside buildings, walls and banks, while spectators stand close enough to inspect both the cars and the road. Nothing separates the course from the Gorge around it. Tap any photograph or newspaper page to inspect it at full size.

The entry lists and results preserve an extraordinary range of manufacturers: Napier, Sunbeam, Talbot, De Dion, Vauxhall, Humber, Riley, Briton, Austin and Clement-Talbot. They appeared alongside Royal Starling, Coventry-Humber and Belsize cars in the recorded 1908 results.

What mattered in these reports was not a modern specification sheet but the pairing of driver, car and hill. A Riley, Briton, Sunbeam, Napier, Humber or Talbot could take a class, a handicap award, a formula trophy or the fastest time.

The surviving reports establish competitive hill climbs in the Gorge from 1908 to 1911. They do not, on their own, establish a final event, so this archive does not give the racing a definite closing date.

What they do capture is a short, remarkable period when ordinary public roads at Coalport and Ironbridge became timed competition courses, drawing club entrants, works-linked drivers, motorcycles, trophies, newspaper coverage and crowds into the steep landscape of the Gorge.

“For a few extraordinary summers, the steep roads of the Ironbridge Gorge were not simply a way through the landscape. They were a race track.”