IRONBRIDGE GORGE MUSEUM TRUST and BROSELEY PIPEWORKS
Registered UK Charity N0: 503717
The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Limited is a registered charity with the twin aims of education and heritage conservation and is one of the largest independent museums in the world. The Trust cares for 35 scheduled monuments and listed buildings within the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site and operates 10 award-winning museums that collectively tell the story of the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
In a move to secure its long-term future and prosperity, from 2 March 2026 the museums, listed buildings, monuments and collections in the care of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust were transferred to the National Trust, thanks to a £9m investment from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. For more details go to Ironbridge Gorge transfer to National Trust.
The Ironbridge Gorge is one of the most significant industrial landscapes in the world. In 1709 Abraham Darby I successfully made cast iron using coke as the fuel instead of charcoal at the old blast furnace. The result was cheap iron, produced on a scale much larger than before. This made the Industrial Revolution possible and shaped the world in which we live today. The story was not just of iron, as a thriving ceramics industry also developed within the Gorge. Coalport China Works produced fine ceramics for European royalty. Jackfield was the world centre of the decorative tile industry and Broseley had a thriving clay tobacco pipe-making industry.
Broseley was well known for its fine clay tobacco pipes. ‘Broseley’ white clay tobacco pipes were recognised nationally for 300 years and for centuries every smoker knew that ‘a Broseley’ was the finest quality clay tobacco pipe you could buy. Pipes made in Broseley factories went all over the world and Broseley pipe makers' fame was based on their high quality, long-stemmed, plain pipes. The best-known of these were the long stemmed 'Churchwardens'.
The Pipeworks was abandoned in the 1950s, but everything inside from the equipment for making clay tobacco pipes to packing materials, invoices and inventories was simply left in situ. The buildings and equipment had not changed hands in 80 years, and so the Pipeworks became a true time capsule. It had been the last factory in the town to make pipes and when it closed, 300 years of a famous Broseley tradition came to an end.
In 1991 the buildings and contents were purchased by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and Bridgnorth District Council with the support of funds raised by our Company. Past Master Tony Ostick headed the appeal and thanks to the generosity of our members, their own companies and some of the international tobacco companies, the entire historic 3 storey building and its kilns were preserved as a time capsule and a museum: the only pipeworks in the country complete with its original equipment.
Clay tobacco pipe making is on the Heritage Crafts red list of ‘endangered crafts’. Oliver Meeson, a demonstrator at the Pipeworks, is one of the last clay tobacco pipe makers in Britain. It's wonderful that Oliver is keeping this cherished heritage craft alive, supported by our Benevolent Fund.
In the garden of the Pipeworks is the Old Quaker Burial Ground where Abraham Darby I was buried in 1717.
For more information please visit Ironbridge Valley of Invention.
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