The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-08-18 00:00:00

THE IRON WORKS OF COALBROOKDALE.

Coalbrookdale is situated on the upper course of the
Severn, in the county of Shropshire, and is connected with
a range of bills, among which the peak of the Wrekin is
remarkably prominent and conspicuous. The natural sce-
nery of the dale is beautiful rather than romantic ; the
rocks by which it is enclosed are limestone, and. ai is in-
variably the case in such stratification, there are no sharp
peaks or abrupt precipices in the range; the hills rise in

. . .
swelling curves, and the various prominences which project
into the dale are all gracefully rounded, many of .hem seem-
ing as if licgarth's line of beauty had been traced in their

outline by artistic agency. The gorge at the entrance of
the dale has not the striking grandeur of most valleys of
the same depth ; there is rather a luxurious softness in it
aspect, which is maintained throt
richly wooded knoll

ut by a succession of
, constantly breaking the line of the

glen, and presenting what we may call cabinet pictures of
scenery, rather than one grand panoramic view. The
descent of the valley affords much liner views than the as-
cent, particularly where the dale opens and abruptly ter-
minates at a winding of the Severn, and commands an ex-
tensive view of the course of the river. When the shades
of twilight begin to deepen, the flames of the forges in the
upper part of the dale present a most singular effect; there
is such a striking contrast between those glowing fires and
the tratoquil softness of the surrounding scenery as to ren-
der the contrast perfectly startling. At the first glance,
one is almost tempted to exclaim with Byron—

" Strange, that where Nature loved to trace
As for the gods a dwelling place,
There man, enamoured ofd stress,
Should mar it to a wilderness."

But this is one of the cases in which statistical science is
directly at variance with poetic feeling. These flaming
furnaces, instead of wasting and destroying, have been the
agents which clothed the hills with beauty, and blessed the
fields with fertility. They have wrenched treasures from
the depths of earth to spread loveliness on its surface, and
agriculture has flourished around because manufacture
was active in the centre.
Few situations could be more favourable for the esta-
blishment of iron works than Coalbrookdale. The iron•
stone is interstratified with the coal, and the limestone is
an admirable flux for the reduction of the metal. The
stream that winds through the dale affords an abundant
supply of cheap water-power, and the rounded irregulari-
ties which we have mentioned offer facilities for the con-
struction of reservoirs,.too obvious to ercape notice even
in an unmechanical age. We know not by whom these
natural advantages were first made available for the pur-
poses of manufacture, but we find that in the reign of
Charles I. the works of Coalbrookdale belonged to the
family of Wolff, decided royalists, who lived at Aladeley,
about a mile from the dale. When Charles 11. fled from
Worcester field

" A hunted wanderer on the wild,"
he obtained shelter at Madeley at the Wolffs' ; after the
Restoration he exhibited the cheap grati'ude of increasing
the armorial bearings of the family, by the addition to
their hereditary crest of the wolf, a crown resting on the
wolf's paw.