The Lloyds, Ironbridge, Shropshire

The area known as 'the Lloyds' is mainly steep sloping woodland now renowned for the nasty bumps and bends in the riverside road between lronbridge and Coalport. But this area was once an important mining community of pits and houses, most of which have been destroyed by the landslip which now threatens to engulf the road itself. Records of industry go back to the fourteenth century but industry reached its peak before the middle of the nineteenth century and died completely in the early years of the present. This is the story of the mining company which controlled the operations, the early engines and engineers and the methods used in working the mines. Over the last few years the Nuffield Foundation and the lronbridge Gorge Museum have sponsored an industrial survey of almost the whole of the Gorge. The Lloyds, however, remained as a blank area in the middle of the survey and this paper attempts to complete the picture

Archaeology · Blank · Industrial archaeology · Woodland · Engineering · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History