Waterloo Street, Ironbridge

From thriving shops to bulldozers

Ironbridge Gorge History Archive

The Central Cinema, Waterloo Street, under snow

These photographs trace the extraordinary transformation of Waterloo Street, once one of Ironbridge's busy commercial streets.

Within a few decades its shops, pubs, cinema and houses disappeared as compulsory purchase, demolition and major road changes transformed this part of the town.

1950s

A street full of life

In the 1950s Waterloo Street was still a busy part of everyday Ironbridge.

Beddoes & Son warehouse, Woolley's, the Crown Inn and the Central Cinema stood among shops, houses and businesses lining the street.

This was not simply a road through Ironbridge. People lived here, worked here, shopped here and went out here.

Looking down the street towards St Luke's Church, buildings tight to the pavement on both sides

The Block House Inn — the painted signboard appears to name James Potts — with a group gathered outside

The corner building and its adjoining shops, with the road being worked on in front

A bus at the foot of the hill beside Woolley's — the route number appears to read 892 — in a colourised view of the street

Woolley's Clothing Stores on the corner, the Old Police Station beyond and a meat contractor's shop on the right

Woolley's Cloth & Pot Stores and its neighbouring shops, from a painted view of the street

“New Bridge Road, Ironbridge” — the houses and shops climbing the bank above the river, from an old postcard view

The same rise of buildings above the river in a later colourised view, cottages and rooftops stepped up the hillside

Charles Jesse, Butcher — the shopfront boarded up before clearance. The shop was saved and re-erected at Blists Hill Victorian Town, where it stands today

Not everything on the street was lost. Charles Jesse’s butcher’s shop, photographed boarded up in its last years here, was taken down and re-erected at Blists Hill Victorian Town, where visitors can still walk into it.

1960s

The street begins to change

By the 1960s the appearance of Waterloo Street was changing.

Buildings were deteriorating and some premises had closed. Later photographs show boarded shopfronts and increasingly run-down buildings.

But the street had not simply become empty.

Businesses including garages, tyre premises and bus operators continued to use parts of the area, with coaches and vehicles occupying sites where shops and houses had once stood.

Motor and tyre trade premises on Waterloo Street

Boarded shopfronts and empty windows on the condemned row

Commercial premises on Waterloo Street — the painted sign appears to read “Elcock & Son”

Waterloo Street, with the walled and overgrown ground between the street and the river

1971

The plan that changed Waterloo Street

Ironbridge ’71

By 1971 the future of Waterloo Street was being considered as part of a much wider plan for Ironbridge.

“Instability in land at Waterloo Street, from Ironbridge Church of England Controlled Junior School in St Luke's Road downwards as far as Waterloo Street.”
“Dereliction of many buildings and associated environmental poverty.”
“Very bad junction between Madeley Road and Waterloo Street, resulting in traffic danger and confusion.”
“The unkempt and overgrown condition of the area between Waterloo Street and the river.”

Buildings affected by the proposed Waterloo Street works, the Old Police Station and the Crown Inn among them

The report accepted that further demolition within historic Ironbridge was undesirable, but concluded that demolition in Waterloo Street could be justified as part of a redesigned road junction.

“They will have to give way to the new works, but they are in very bad condition and subject to the threat of land instability.”

This referred to the Crown Inn and the buildings beside it.

1975

Ironbridge '75

Four years later the proposals had developed into a wider plan for the conservation and redevelopment of Ironbridge.

The proposals included

Reduce through traffic
Create more space for pedestrians
Remove unsafe or derelict buildings
Alter the Waterloo Street / Madeley Hill junction
Landscape the surrounding slopes and riverbank

Original pages from the Telford Development Corporation’s Ironbridge ’75 report. Tap any page to enlarge and read it.

Central area improvement — a page from the Ironbridge '75 report

Waterloo Street junction improvement — a page from the Ironbridge '75 report

The Madeley Hill and Waterloo Street junction, as set out in the report

Before the bulldozers

Empty and derelict buildings on Waterloo Street, St Luke's Church tower beyond

The scale of what disappeared is difficult to appreciate today.

The old street contained a dense row of buildings, shops and businesses running towards the Madeley Hill junction.

The redevelopment swept away much of this streetscape.

Demolition

Waterloo Street

Early 1970s

The bulldozers arrived.

Much of the old Waterloo Street streetscape disappeared during the redevelopment.

A gutted row of shops, roofs off, awaiting clearance

Half the street already down, the surviving houses left standing

The new traffic island being built at the top of Waterloo Street, with a digger, cones and a motorcyclist passing

The Waterloo Street / Madeley Hill junction from above, with a timber retaining wall under construction beside the road

The junction after clearance, with the surviving corner building and road signs visible

The corner building with boarded windows and roadworks in the foreground

What was lost?

Central Cinema
The Crown Inn
Beddoes & Son
Woolley's
Shops and houses
Commercial premises along Waterloo Street

Then & now

A street almost completely rewritten

Then and now — buses on the old street, and the same view after the road changes

Then and now — the old row towards St Luke's, and the rebuilt street on the same line

The corner warehouse, sold ahead of redevelopment

Car parking and the Bartlett fountain ground on the cleared land — the fountain was moved from The Square

The corner building later occupied by Trotfield Windows

By the late 1970s the Crown Inn, the cinema and much of the old row had gone. Waterloo Street emerged with a new road layout, junction, car parking and landscaped areas.

The route survived.Much of the street around it did not.

What do you remember?

Did you shop in Waterloo Street, visit the Central Cinema, drink in the Crown, remember the buses or know any of the people who lived or worked here?

We would love to hear your memories.

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