page_title: Telford Town Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Telford Town Park / History
context_page_description: Telford Town Park is a park and Local Nature Reserve in Telford in Shropshire. In 2015, it was voted "UK's Best Park" in the inaugural public competition organised by Fields in Trust
context_section_description: Saxon times saw the first real changes in the area currently known as Telford Town Park when early settlers cleared areas within the forest to create land suitable for farming.  These became the starting points for places like Dawley, Stirchley and Malinslee, the key catchment areas that surround Telford Town Park ('Ley' is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning a clearing in the wood).  In the 13th century much of the land around Stirchley was given to the Cistercian monks of Buildwas Abbey. It was these monks who built the original Grange at Stirchley and farmed the surrounding land until the 1530s.  The relatively peaceful scene of small farmsteads separated by hedges and woodlands continued until the dramatic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Valuable raw materials such as coal and ironstone were mined, and this produced enormous amounts of waste which created the pit mounds seen in the Park today. The Shropshire Canal passed through the Park and new industries grew up alongside the canal – iron furnaces, foundries and forges at Hinkshay and on the Stirchley Chimney site. Most of the industries belonged to the Old Park Company, set up by Isaac Hawkins Browne who used to live at Stirchley Grange.
  
  The Wellington Iron and Coal Company built the Randlay Chimney in 1873 however, due to bankruptcy in 1877, the furnace seen today was never fired. This site was bought by the Wrekin Chemical Company in 1886 and used to manufacture naphtha charcoal and lime salts until the locals complained about the smell. The last mine, Grange Pit, closed in 1894 however, new industries soon arrived to produce kerbstones and paving slabs. By the 1960s industries had moved from the area leaving behind a trail of derelict remains soon to be reclaimed by nature. Despite all this industrial activity plants and animals soon returned and as you follow the paths you will find mining and factory remains amongst the trees and meadows.  The pit mounds evolved into small heathland and woodlands and hedgerows grew alongside the old canal and railway tracks and the quarries became pools. 
  More recently during the 1970s, Telford Development Corporation (TDC) developed what is today known as Telford Town Park.  TDC's remit was to provide a 'Green Lung' for the people of the New Town and by 1984 the 170 hectare Town Park evolved. In 1992 the Park was handed over to what was then Wrekin Council which in 1998 became the new Unitary Authority the Borough of Telford & Wrekin, (recently changed to Telford & Wrekin Council). The original concept of the Park was to provide an area of green open space right in the heart of the new industrial town and with its central locality the Park is well served by a road infrastructure designed in the 1970s. 
  The London and North Western Railway's Coalport Branch Line ran through the park to Coalport via Stirchley & Madeley Market after the failure of the Shropshire Canal. This became the Silkin Way some years after the closure of the railway (then British Railways under nationalisation) to passengers in 1952 and to goods on 5 December 1960. On 9 April 1980 the 2 ft (610 mm) gauge Telford Town Tramway was opened by the Reverend W. Awdry on the trackbed of the Coalport branch alongside Randlay Pool in the Park. The tramway only lasted a few years before it closed in the mid-1980s. The tram has since been preserved by the Telford Steam Railway running on its own circular track by Horsehay Pool. As well as the LNWR Coalport branch, a freight-only Great Western Railway branch from Hollinswood Junction on the Wolverhampton-Shrewsbury line just east of the present day Telford Central station, ran south through the park on the east side of what is now Randlay Pool, terminating near the Stirchley chimney. Opened in 1908, this short lived line was closed on 2 February 1959. A footpath runs parallel to, and partly on, the alignment of this branch on the east side of Randlay Lake.
caption: The Old Stone Row Cottages.