National Trust encourages Ironbridge collaboration

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The National Trust took over ownership of the sites in March and the attractions reopened under their new management in May.

The Telford and Shropshire Local Visitor Economy Partnership has arranged a one-day conference in Coalbrookdale on Monday to discuss collaboration opportunities.

It said the museums, which tell the story of the birth of the industrial revolution in the gorge, were one of the county's "most important visitor attractions".

The attractions had previously been managed by The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust since 1967.

It ran 10 museums, 35 listed buildings and scheduled monuments, including Blists Hill Victorian Town, the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron and the Old Furnace.

It does not include the world's first large Iron Bridge, a Grade I listed structure spanning the River Severn and giving the area its name, which is owned by Telford and Wrekin Council and cared for by English Heritage.

When the National Trust took over, with the help of a £9m government grant, the National Trust said it aimed to increase annual visitor numbers from 330,000 to 600,000 in the long term.

That will partly be achieved by giving paid National Trust members access to the site, but it said it also wanted to "strengthen relationships" with the tourism industry in the area.

The Local Visitor Economy Partnership is made up of Telford and Wrekin Council, Shropshire Council, Visit Telford and Visit Shropshire.

It said the conference on Monday would allow businesses to "learn more about the evolving visitor offer at Ironbridge Gorge, gain insight into future opportunities, and explore how businesses can work alongside one of the destination's strongest visitor assets".

The Ironbridge Gorge area was named a Unesco World heritage site in 1986.

It played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, owing much to Abraham Darby I's transformation of iron production, as well as the "iron masters" who followed him, with some likening the area to the silicon valley of its day.

The innovations which were started there are widely recognised as being the catalyst for the building of the bridges, railways and machinery of the modern world.

The £9m government grant, announced last October, was given to enable the National Trust to fund the upkeep of the properties, as part of the government's Plan for Change, to help boost the local economy.

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