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Photo: Grahamec, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
An ancient abbey ruin owned by English Heritage just outside Ironbridge. It is advisable to use a car to get to as, while it is within walking distance, it is a walk of around a mile along a road with no pavement.
Buildwas Abbey was a Cistercian monastery located on the banks of the River Severn, at Buildwas in Shropshire, England - today about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Ironbridge. Founded by the local bishop in 1135, it was sparsely endowed at the outset but enjoyed several periods of growth and increasing wealth: notably under Abbot Ranulf in the second half of the 12th century and again from the mid-13th century, when large numbers of acquisitions were made from the local landed gentry. Abbots were regularly used as agents by the Plantagenet monarchs in their attempts to subdue Ireland and Wales and the abbey acquired a daughter house in each country.
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Former houses belonging to Abraham Darby I, a Quaker and industrialist who developed a method of producing pig iron with a blast furnace using coke instead of charcoal which was vital to the Industrial Revolution. His work can be seen at the Museum of Iron.
Abraham Darby's original blast furnace and a large Victorian warehouse, now housing a museum of the Coalbrookdale company.
A small museum, but containing a large diorama model of the gorge at the height of its industry. A visit here first helps to put all of the museums into context.
An interactive science & engineering museum aimed at children.