Town in Shropshire, England
Telford
Telford is a town named after a man who never lived there, built on land where the Industrial Revolution was kick-started, and it has its own hill that everybody walks round.
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Key information
- County
- Shropshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Britain's best-known new town, with the Industrial Revolution's birthplace on its doorstep
- What locals are called
- Telfordians
- Famous people
- Thomas Telford, Captain Matthew Webb, Abraham Darby
- Football clubs
- AFC Telford United (the Bucks)
About Telford
The town named after a man who got there first, sort of
Telford is a youngster. It was designated in 1963 as Dawley New Town, and in 1968 it was renamed in honour of Thomas Telford, the great Scottish engineer who spent decades building roads, bridges and canals across Shropshire and beyond. Telford was appointed county surveyor of Shropshire in 1787 and left his mark everywhere, from churches to bridges. Calling a modern engineered town after him was a neat fit: this was planned on a grand scale, with roads, estates and industrial areas laid out to take people from the crowded West Midlands. The new town swallowed up older communities such as Dawley, Wellington, Oakengates and Madeley. That is why Telford feels like a collection of places stitched together rather than one old market square with suburbs.
Ground zero for the Industrial Revolution
Long before the new town, this patch of Shropshire was one of the busiest industrial landscapes on Earth. In 1709 Abraham Darby I, working at Coalbrookdale, made iron using coke instead of charcoal. That was a breakthrough that made iron cheaper and more plentiful, and helped to power the age of machines. The Iron Bridge, completed in 1779 by Abraham Darby III and spanning the Severn, was the first major bridge of its kind in the world to be made of cast iron. It gave the village of Ironbridge its name and put the gorge on the map. The Ironbridge Gorge museums today preserve the story at sites such as Blists Hill Victorian Town, the Coalport China Museum and the Tar Tunnel, where natural bitumen seeps from the walls. Horsehay, now part of Telford, was home to ironworks that cast bridge parts and engines for much of the world.
The engineer's own backyard
Thomas Telford's Shropshire work includes the Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct of 1796, the first major navigable cast-iron aqueduct in the world. It is just outside the town, and it was a trial run for the more spectacular Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales. Telford went on to build the Menai Suspension Bridge, the Caledonian Canal and hundreds of miles of roads. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, which is rather a grand resting place for a stonemason's apprentice from the Scottish borders.
The man who swam the Channel was a Dawley lad
Captain Matthew Webb was born in Dawley in 1848. In 1875 he became the first person to swim the English Channel without artificial aids, crossing from Dover to Calais in just under 22 hours. He grew up near the Severn and learned to swim in its waters, a long way from the sea. Webb became a national celebrity, though he died in 1883 trying to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls. His memorial stands in Dover, but Dawley claims him proudly as its own.
Football, ice hockey and a hill to look up to
AFC Telford United, known as the Bucks, play at the New Bucks Head. The earlier Telford United won the FA Trophy in 1971, 1983 and 1989, and in 1985 reached the fifth round of the FA Cup, a deep run for a non-league side. The Telford Tigers keep ice hockey going in the town. Over everything looms the Wrekin, the hill just north-west of the town that Shropshire folk have been climbing for generations. The local saying "all round the Wrekin" means taking the long way about, whether you are talking about a journey or a roundabout explanation. Telford Town Park, the large green space near the centre, and the vast Telford Centre shopping complex show the new town at its most deliberate: green space, retail space and road links planned from the start.
What's on the plate
Telford does not have a signature dish of its own, but Shropshire does. Shropshire fidget pie is a hearty mix of gammon or bacon, apples and onions under a pastry lid, and it turns up on local pub menus and in farm shops. The county's farming and market-town tradition also means good sausages, cheeses and ales are never far away. Eating around Telford is a reminder that behind the roundabouts and industrial estates lies proper English farming country.