Well, maybe not gorgeous but still, pretty impressive, standing on the hillside above the gorge where the Severn cuts through the Shropshire hills. The village of Ironbridge is just that. A cluster of houses around the first cast iron bridge in the world, built in the late 18th century. In the early evening sun it looks particularly impressive.

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Blists Hill Victorian Town has been created around two originall industries that existed here in Victorian times: the brick and tile works

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and the iron works

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It is here that men worked 12 hour shifts in the blast furnaces, pouring slag down to create blasts of hot air 24 hours a day firing molten iron at over 1,000 degrees centigrade.

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The rest of the town was built up around these two industries to provide to visitors an idea of how hard life was for the workers at that time. It may look idyllic today but in those days it was hard.

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