Telford’s elegant iron design was sublime

Telford is celebrating its 40th birthday this week so, in a roundabout way, let’s join in the celebrations with this picture.

It’s nothing to do with Telford new town of course - it’s far too old for that. But it does show a long-disappeared structure which was the work of Thomas Telford, after whom the town was named.

This is Buildwas Bridge, which was built by Telford in 1796, and was an elegant iron design.

In fact, he appears to have wanted to show that he could do better than the design of the far more famous Iron Bridge downstream, which was still fairly new at that time.

Telford’s bridge was replaced in 1905 and that replacement has itself been replaced in more modern times.

This picture has come from Shrewsbury historian and author David Trumper and was one in an album he was recently given.