Tontine Hill

It’s hard to imagine today, but Tontine Hill once looked very different. Instead of grass banks and open views, both sides of the hill were tightly packed with shops, houses and stables running right down to the Iron Bridge.

Before 1937 – Two busy rows of buildings

On the right-hand side of the hill (looking up from the Bridge, opposite the Tontine Hotel) was a continuous terrace of buildings:

• Bates & Hunt, Chemist – a large three-storey white building that dominated old photographs.

• P. Thomas, Seedsman & Florist – remembered for its “Clay’s Fertilizer” signs in the window.

• A confectioner’s with a flat above.

• Several cottages, squeezed close together.

On the left-hand side, where the memorial now stands, stood the stables for the Tontine Hotel, along with more small houses and shops.

1937 – The unbuilt bridge scheme

In November 1937, the Wellington Journal reported that Salop County Council was preparing for a new bridge to be built alongside the Iron Bridge. To make way for it, the Council moved to compulsorily purchase almost the entire island block of property at the foot of Tontine Hill.

The report lists the compensation agreed:

• Grocer’s shop & dwelling-house: £650

• Florist’s/chemist’s shop & dwelling-house: £650

• Confectioner’s shop & flat over: £2,250

• Cottages: £275

This amounted to practically the whole block on the right-hand side of the hill. But the Second World War broke out before the new bridge could be built.

May 1946 – Demolition

The war halted progress, but in May 1946, the bulldozers finally moved in. The chemist, florist, confectioner’s and cottages on the right-hand side were demolished. The much-talked-about new bridge was abandoned — but by then, the buildings were already gone.

Late 1940s–1960s – The stables and the memorial

On the left-hand side of the hill, the Tontine Hotel stables were demolished between 1949 and 1952.

Meanwhile, the War Memorial, which had been erected in the Square after the First World War, originally stood facing across the river towards the railway station — almost as if the soldier cast in bronze was waiting for comrades to come home on the train.

In 1965, it was resited onto the cleared ground where the stables had been. But this placed it with its back to the river, a decision that was never popular with locals. Due to land stability, the memorial has to face away from the river, and cannot be turned around without extensive and expensive modifications, as the ground beneath is rubble from the demolished stables.

1970s – Road realignment and resurfacing

The Telford Development Corporation undertook major road improvements in the 1970s. The junction of Tontine Hill and the High Street was completely redesigned:

• More surviving properties went.

• Pavements were relayed in York stone with distinctive Coalbrookdale cast-iron kerbs.

• Overhead cables were buried underground.

• The slopes were opened out and landscaped into the broad views we see today.

Shops of the 20th century – Tufnell’s and others

Even as the buildings thinned out, shops kept Tontine Hill alive.

Tufnell’s Newsagents & Tobacconists became a familiar name from the 1950s through the 1970s. With its striped awning, bold Wills’s Cut Golden Bar adverts, and Wall’s Ice Cream boards outside, it was where many locals got their daily paper, cigarettes, or a bag of sweets after school.

Outside Tufnells, Tontine Hill Ironbridge. Taken around 1962. Gill Beach nee Taylor from Ironbridge on the left and Mrs Nancy Oakley on the right.

Families still remember queuing at Tufnell’s in the mornings, or running in for ice creams on hot days.

Other shops included small grocers, minimarkets, confectioners, and later takeaway cafés — each adapting as Ironbridge shifted from an industrial town to a visitor destination.

Today

What remains today is almost unrecognisable from the crowded, bustling rows of shops and stables that once lined Tontine Hill. The story of compulsory purchase, abandoned plans, demolition, and road schemes has left us with the open space that frames the Iron Bridge now — but the names of Bates & Hunt, P. Thomas, and the shopkeepers whose livelihoods were lost remind us of the people behind those vanished frontages.