Full Metal Wheelbarrow

Rob booked Friday off and we toodled off to Coalbrookdale where they built the first iron bridge ever.

We parked at the Shakespeare Inn in Coalport where we were booked to stay for the night and donned our walking boots and waterproof coats to follow the riverside path into Ironbridge. It was a much nicer day than the preceding week would have led us to expect - sunny and dry if not hugely warm. About the best you could ask for in February really.



The walk started near the Coalport China museum of which this bottle kiln is a part :-



Then it took us past the Hay Inclined Plane, which was used to move boats from one level of canal to another without having to faff about with the 27 locks they'd otherwise have needed :-



Not far from there we came to the Maws Craft centre which had this chute in the side of it :-



The entrance to the Craft Centre.



I'm not sure if someone was trying to tell us something but not long after we got there, the re was a power cut. The nice lady in the cafe went across the courtyard to another shop which still had power to boil the kettle and make us some tea, which we were very impressed with.
Nice tea too. We left them a good tip, as we felt they'd gone above and beyond with the service.

Having had tea and cake we continued onward past this odd trackway in the middle of an otherwise ordinary road :-



Next stop was the Jackfield Tile museum.

We'd been under the impression that this was closed in the winter, but fortunately this turned out not to be the case.

We bought our museum passes there - this allows unlimited entry to all the museums in the area for a year and if you haven't managed to visit them all when the years up, one visit to any you've missed out after that. An excellent idea, we though - and we got a discount on account of Rob being visually impaired.

Possibly, like me, you might not expect a tile museum to be the most enthralling thing ever, but I absolutely loved it - it was really well done and presented and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

Here's a detail of the outside of the building :-



After some nice soup in the museum cafe, we once more toddled onward and got to the eponymous iron bridge :-




Photos were a bit dubious as for once there was too much light. Or possibly the wrong sort of light. In any case it was washing out the photos from most angles.

Despite that, the centre of Ironbridge was full of busy folk in hi-viz gear putting up flood barriers:-



Despite the barriers going up right outside it, the Museum of the Gorge was open, but it was a bit disappointing after the tile museum - not nearly so interesting and mostly geared toward small children.

Having explored it we set off back to Coalport, passing the new road bridge on the way :-



As well as this rather relaxed-looking house :-



A tour round the Coalport china museum rounded off our excursion for the day - this was much better. Rob particularly liked the exhibit where they had solid shapes of the different teacup shapes which he could feel as well as look at, as this gave him a much clearer idea of them.

We then repaired to the pub where we were shown to a very nice cosy room (albeit up some very steep outdoor stairs) and after changing and a cuppa we returned to the pub bit for dinner. Which was enormous. A bit too much really - my enchilada was served with both chips and rice where one or the other would have done. We did manage to find room for pudding, although it turned out to be a little disappointing - banoffee pie should have a biscuit base, not rock-hard pastry. It wasn't bad enough to complain about though, so we toddled off to bed instead.

After a reasonable night's sleep (there was noise, but it is a pub, so that's to be expected) we had a modest breakfast, still being quite full from dinner, stowed our stuff in the van and set off up the hill to Blist's Hill Victorian Town.

It was much less steep than we'd anticipated, being one of those paths based on an old railway line.

A waymarker on the path :-



We encountered the inclined plane again on the way, this time passing underneath it :-



At Blist's Hill we met our Facebook friend Felicity and her partner Tony, who has a brickmaking workshop there. We'd brought some live mealworms for the robin who frequents the workshop, but he declined to show himself while we were there. Probably thought we were internet axe-murderers ;)

After a nice chat round a blazing woodstove we toddled off to look round the rest of the place. I liked the way it was clearly easier to build the fence round this giant wheel than to move it :-



This sign made me giggle. Because I am five.



We couldn't find this, alas :-



We did find a very posh-looking teashop above the pub though. So posh we half expected to be told to take our plebian selves elsewhere, but the nice man there couldn't have been keener to bring us tea. And very nice it was too.

An old Cyclist's Touring Club sign adorns another building:-



Alarmed building is alarmed :-



After a wander up and down we were beginning to get tired, so we strolled gently downhill again, had coffee at the pub and then set off home. We were hugely lucky with the weather and had a very nice mini-holiday :)