The Hay House also must be ranked among the oldest buildings of its class, as one which comes down to us from forest times, and in connection with this bosc or Madeley-Wood we have been describing. The house stood here no doubt in forest times, and in its capacious cellars good venison and wine have ere now been stored.
Among the oldest houses in Madeley now standing must be mentioned that belonging to and occupied by Mr. George Legge, where Mr. Wolfe entertained King Charles. Also the house belonging to Mr. John Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox informs us that in the writings it was originally called “Little Hay;” having been built for the son of the proprietor of the Hay house; and that in front was the fold-yard, with a house or two at the outside for farm servants. The interior of the house bears marks of great antiquity; and one room appeals to have been used as a chapel. In what was originally a field was found a well formed with circular stones; on the top ranges are figures, 12 in number, probably representing saints of the Roman Calendar.
Some of the old heavily timbered cottages have been pulled down to make way for modern structures. Freed from exacting forest laws openings in woods began to be made; and during the next two centuries houses of timber, half timber, and wattle-and-dab, and timber and bricks, began to rise up here and there, at Madeley, along the Severn side, and at the Lloyds. Some houses were fitted together, so far as their frame-work was concerned, in woods where the timber grew, and the parts being afterwards removed were pegged together: among them may have been the New house mentioned in Henry the VIII’s grant of 1544, that bearing the date 1612, in the Dale, Bedlam Hall, and the Blockhouse. [333]
Nothing whatever is known, so far as we could learn, about the history of Bedlam Hall; and little beyond conjecture concerning the Block-house, which formerly meant a place to defend a harbor, a passage, or station for vessels. That the ford above was a passage at a very early time there can be no doubt; and it might have been erected by the lords of the manor to protect such a pass. (The date upon the old house nearly opposite is 1654; and this was built by Adam Crumpton, who owned the ferry and paid duty to the lords of the manor (we presume) on each side.) Some say it was a store for barge tackle; and others that it owes its name to the fact that bargemen here put on a block and reeved their lines to get up the ford. It is quite certain that Madeley Wood bargemen had now begun to carry coals, got by levels driven into the hill side under the Brockholes and Foxholes, and to export them, as old Fuller speaks of more than 200 years ago. The monks of Buildwas however had vessels in the 13th century, as we have shewn in “our History of Broseley” (p.p. 14 and 15); and as early as 1220 obtained a giant of a right of road, through Broseley-Wood to the Severn, over which to carry stone to their barges, which they loaded near what is now Ironbridge.
In 1756 there were 39 barges belonging to 21 owners at Madeley-Wood; now there are not half a dozen. From an early period there seems to have been a ferry here; probably boats were kept on either side by the owners of the two old houses which existed near. At any rate there were means of crossing the river when king Charles came down for that purpose and found the passage guarded, during the progress of his flight after his defeat at Worcester. Of roads on this side we fancy there were none, excepting the beds of brooks up which the Wenlock monks scrambled to reach their granary, their mill, their park, and fishponds at Madeley, but of these we shall speak presently.
The present town may be said to owe its creation to the construction of the far-famed iron bridge which here spans the Severn, and from which it derives its name. The iron works established at Madeley Wood, together with the flourishing works of Coalbrookdale, and the communication the bridge opened up with those of iron and clay at Broseley, so fostered its trade that it soon sprang into importance as a town. John Locke, the well-known author of the work on “The Understanding,” has somewhere said that he who first made known the use of iron “may be styled the father of arts and the author of plenty.” Next to the discovery of the material, in point of importance, is its adaptation to the uses and conveniences of mankind. No bridge crossed the river between Buildwas and Bridgnorth, and to the noble arch which crosses the Severn the place is indebted alike for its population, its importance, and its name. It has the credit of having been the first of its kind, and in design and construction was a triumph of engineering skill rarely witnessed at the period at which it was built. A great advance upon the rickety wooden structures, affected by wind and rain, it was no less so upon those clumsy-looking ones of stone higher up and lower down the river, which, choking up the stream and impeding navigation, caused apprehensions at every flood for their safety. The design originated at a period interesting from the expansion of the iron trade and the progress of road making; and was opposed by the ferry men, who thought boats a sufficient accommodation in connecting both banks of the river. But as stone succeeded more primitive formations—logs, single or planked, thrown across a stream—so iron from its strength and lightness triumphed over other materials. It may add to the triumph of the achievement to remark, that both French and Italian engineers who, during the last century took the lead in engineering works of this kind, had made attempts in this particular department, but failed—chiefly from the inability of their iron founders to cast large masses of metal. The first attempt, we believe, was made at Lyons, in 1775. One of the arches was put together, but the project was afterwards abandoned as too costly, timber being substituted in its stead.
The second Abraham Darby had looked at the place and thought how it was to be done. The third Abraham Darby, who on arriving at man’s estate showed himself possessed of the same spirit of enterprise as had distinguished his father and grandfather, resolved to carry out the idea, and to erect a bridge which should unite the parishes of Broseley and Madeley, the former then in the full tide of its prosperity as an iron making, pot making, and brick making district. The time was favourable for the experiment, not only on account of the expansion of the iron trade, but from the progress just then taking place in road making; and the owners of the adjoining land as well as those at the head of local industries were found favourable to the scheme. A company was formed, and an Act of Parliament was obtained, the provisions of which were so drawn as to provide against failure, the terms being that the bridge should be of “cast iron, stone, brick, or timber.” Like some members of the company, the architect, Mr. Pritchard, of Shrewsbury, does not seem to have had full faith in the new material, as in the first plans prepared by him iron was to be used but sparingly, and in the crown of the arch only. This did not satisfy Abraham Darby, John Wilkinson, and others; and Mr. Darby’s principal pattern maker, Thomas Gregory, made other plans.
Wilkinson had made and launched his iron barge down at the Roving, he had made “iron men” to get the coal, he had made an iron pulpit, he had made himself an iron coffin, which he kept in his greenhouse, besides one or two to give away to his friends. He had faith in iron, in iron only, and he insisted upon the employment of his favourite metal.
Telford described him as the king of Ironmasters, in himself a host; the others said he was iron mad, but submitted; and the bridge was commenced. The stone abutments were laid in 1777, during which time the castings were being made at the Dale. The ironwork took but three months to erect. The following particulars may be interest.
On the abutments of the stone works are placed iron plates, with mortices, in which stand two upright pillars of the same. Against the foot of the inner pillar the bottom of the main rib bears on a base plate. This rib consists of two pieces connected by a dovetail joint in an iron key, and fastened by screws; each is seventy feet long. The shorter ribs pass through the pillar, the back rib in like manner, without coming down to the plate. The cross-stays, braces, circles in spandrils, and the brackets, connect the larger pieces, so as to keep the bridge perfectly steady, while the diagonal and cross-stays and top plates connect the pillars and ribs together in opposite directions. The whole bridge is covered with top plates, projecting over the ribs on each side, and on this projection stands the balustrade of cast iron. The road over the bridge, made generally of iron slag, is twenty-four feet wide, and one foot deep. The span of the arch is one hundred feet six inches, and the height from the base line to the centre is forty feet. The weight of iron in the whole is three hundred and seventy-eight tons, ten hundred-weight. Each piece of the long ribs weighs five tons, fifteen hundred. On the largest or exterior rib is inscribed in capitals—“This bridge was cast at Coalbrookdale, and erected in the year 1779.”