Madeley Wood Company

The Madeley Wood Company was formed in 1756 when the Madley Wood Furnaces, also called Bedlam Furnaces, were built beside the River Severn, one mile west of Blists Hill.

The Bedlam Furnaces were owned by this company, which held mineral leases in Madeley Parish, enabling it to extract coal and iron ore. The works were taken over by Abraham Darby III of the Coalbrookdale Company in 1776. When the company was reorganised in 1797, the Madley Wood Works became separate from Coalbrookdale, continuing (in conjunction with the Ketley ironworks) in the hands of the Reynolds family who had been partners at Coalbrookdale since the 1760s. After Joseph Reynolds decided to concentrate on his bank, the Madeley Wood Works passed to the Anstice family, one of whom had managed it, and their business became another Madley Wood Company.

Upon its opening in 1790, the ironworks had access to the Shropshire Canal, the Blists Hill section of which ran immediately to the east of the Blists Hill works site. Proximity of raw materials and the means of transporting the finished product persuaded the company to build a blast furnace at Blists Hill in 1832.

Additional furnaces were added in 1840 and 1844, making a total of three, and the site remained active in the production of pig iron until 1912 when the ironworks ceased production, following the blowing in of two of the furnaces.

The site history through the 20th century is less well documented. Dense vegetation cover was allowed to establish itself amongst the ruins until the late 1950s when the site was subject to spoil dumping, which completely buried the furnace bases. In the 1970s what was to become the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust began clearing and restoring the works.

Further reading

*B. Trinder, "The Industrial Revolution in Shropshire" (3rd edition, Phillimmore, Chichester 2000).