Shropshire’s Iron Bridge – an elegant symbol of the Industrial Revolution – was today named as one of the new Icons of England. It ranks alongside Westminster Abbey, Rolls Royce and even Winnie the Pooh, in a new list of 21 things which make England special.

Check out our Iron Bridge photo gallery.    

The world’s first iron bridge, constructed in 1779 over the River Severn, was voted for by the public and selected by a panel of experts.

It is among the fourth wave of icons to be identified in a national project launched in January by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Called Icons – A Portrait of England, the aim is to create an online collection of the country’s icons at www.icons.org.uk 

Steve Miller, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust chief executive, said today: “The Iron Bridge has been regarded as an international icon of the Industrial Revolution for centuries. It is fitting that it has now been recognised as an Icon of England for its innovation, creativity and industrial prowess.

“This acknowledgement is a great testament to the determination of the thousands of people who worked in the gorge over the centuries and the current inspiration that drives the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and allied agencies to work together to manage this remarkable World Heritage Site.”

Among those who nominated the Iron Bridge was The Dean of York, the Very Rev Keith Jones.

He said: “I picked the Iron Bridge because it is a wonderful example of ingenuity and the English have always been rather good at ingenuity, and I speak as a Welshman.

“It is also extremely elegant, and the English are rather good at elegance . . . and they like things to be graceful.

“In that sort of mixture of this new-fangled ability to handle iron, and at the same time to make something of a beautiful, classical construction, I think you see Englishness at work.”

The full list of 21 new icons revealed today is: Winnie the Pooh, Westminster Abbey, the stiff upper lip, narrowboats on canals, Cheddar, Rolls Royce, English weather, the Tube map, The V sign, the Robin, the Peak District, Iron Bridge, Guy Fawkes Night, Dr Who, Sergeant Pepper, the Thames, the red telephone box, the rose, Wimbledon, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management.

History of famous landmark:

• The Ironbridge Gorge was a hub of industry in the 18th century, with hundreds of boats using the River Severn and more than seven ferry crossings carrying raw materials and workers.
• In 1773, Shrewsbury architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard wrote to local ironmaster John “Iron Mad” Wilkinson to suggest a new bridge of cast iron.
• Pritchard submitted his design in 1775 and Abraham Darby III was commissioned to build it.
• It took 384 tonnes of cast iron to build the bridge, produced at the Coalbrookdale Furnace.
• Darby’s team of workmen raised the great arches of the bridge in the summer of 1779, with each rib alone weighing six tonnes.
• The bridge was officially opened on New Year’s Day 1781.
• A toll-keeper was employed to collect money from people crossing the bridge from 6am to 9pm each day and those attempting to cross the river by any other means were fined.
• Traffic continued to cross the bridge until 1934 , while tolls – just a halfpenny for pedestrians – were ended in 1950.
• The bridge immediately became a big tourist attraction and was reproduced on snuff-boxes, porcelain jugs and letterheads.

By Peter Johnson