Ironbridge Gorge

A gorge cut at the end of the last ice age, when the Irish Sea ice sheet dammed the Severn and the water backed up into Lake Lapworth until it overflowed. The cutting exposed coal, iron ore, limestone and fireclay together in one place, and the deep wide river below could carry the products out to the Bristol Channel, which is why the early Industrial Revolution happened here rather than somewhere else. The Iron Bridge of 1779, the first of its kind anywhere, linked Broseley with Madeley and Coalbrookdale, and gave the gorge its name.