The Iron Bridge opens over the Severn
Cast at Coalbrookdale under Abraham Darby III and opened on New Year's Day 1781, the first cast-iron bridge in the world used carpentry joints — dovetails, mortices and wedges — because nobody yet knew how to detail iron. It was a demonstration rather than an economy, and it worked: within a generation iron was a structural material for mills, aqueducts and rails.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- The Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale · site · United Kingdom
- Abraham Darby I · person · United Kingdom · not located
- Iron · natural resource · United Kingdom · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Ironbridge Gorge, United Kingdom — World Heritage List
Supports the inscription of the gorge, the Darby furnace and the Iron Bridge as a landscape of early industrial ironmaking. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted — whc.unesco.org is blocked from this session. The reference number and criteria are omitted rather than reconstructed.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre · inscribed 1986 · Partly verified
UNESCO World Heritage List entry for Ironbridge Gorge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (inscribed 1986)
Recorded on The Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale
- Darby smelts iron with coke at Coalbrookdale
- The Iron Bridge opens over the Severn
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.