Residents aim to revamp heritage site 'gateway'

"One of our group said that as you come down Jiggers Bank and in to Coalbrookdale at the entrance to the World Heritage Site that it looks quite scruffy," said Mrs Jean Wright.

"It isn't celebrated in the way Ironbridge is. We want to improve things in the Coalbrookdale area for the community. It's a significant entrance to the Gorge and not a lot is made of it."

With the closure last November of the historic Coalbrookdale Works, Aga Rangemaster has donated various artifacts from the works - a cauldron, an anvil, and cast-iron Coalbrookdale benches. The group's aim is to find homes for these as part of an overall makeover.

Already some planting has been done near a children's play area and a vandalised Victorian post box has been repaired and painted black - this indicates it is no longer in use.

A damaged bus shelter has been repaired and given a coat of wood stain.

Further measures will include landscaping open space in front of the community centre and planting it with bee-friendly flowers, and a longer term ambition is to commemorate the Coalbrookdale Works, and those who worked there, with a sculpture.

Another proposal is to create a small library in the space that was occupied by the telephone box, and to put up historic photographs across the windows of the old Hiscock's shop, which has a prime roadside position and has been closed since 2002.

Five Coalbrookdale residents have got together - Robert Petty, Carolyn Healey, Jean Wright, Maureen Bragg, and Louise Lomax - and call themselves the Coke Hearth Improvements Group.

Coke Hearth is the area of Coalbrookdale that visitors first see as they enter the World Heritage Site.

A drop in session has already been held to get feedback from locals on the various ideas and to see what they would like done and ideas they have.

One outcome of the efforts has been to preserve some items of community heritage whose future following the closure of the Coalbrookdale Works might otherwise have been in doubt

"When myself and Maureen Bragg, who is a parish councillor for Coalbrookdale, went into the Dale works discussing the things they donated to us I noticed a lot of framed advertising posters going back to the 1980s for Aga cookers.

"There was also something on the wall listing the managers of the foundry.

"All these things would have been lost. They would have been thrown away. We had those from them.

"And in its heyday the Coalbrookdale Works had a very active social club and there are lots of cups for sporting teams and other social activities, even cribbage. I thought it would be a shame for them to go into the skip."

They too have been retrieved and are now at the community centre, while other items like the benches and cauldron are in storage while plans for them are finalised.

Jean added: "Longer term what we would really want to do is have some kind of sculpture cast to commemorate the foundry and the working men and women of Coalbrookdale."