Industrial structures are not often treated to the same degree of intensive archaeological analysis as might be expected on, for example, a medieval monastic site. Yet such structures are often as complex, and indeed as important. A major scheme of repairs to buildings and monuments in the Ironbridge Gorge has provided the opportunity for a programme of archaeological analysis and recording. The work provided a basis for devising the repair strategy; it ensured that there was an archaeological presence during works which would affect fabric, and resulted in the creation of a record of what was done. Final reports are currently in preparation, and the documentation will be vital to the future management of the monuments by the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust.
A sequence of reports was produced throughout the repair work, but one of the first final reports to be compiled was that on Bedlam Furnaces, a group of iron furnaces on the riverside, made famous by their depiction by P J de Loutherburg in one of the best known images of the industrial revolution. Begun in 1757 by the Madeley Wood Company, the coke-fired furnaces provided cast iron. The archaeological analysis of the furnaces in conjunction with a reappraisal of the documentary evidence has shown that many of the previous assumptions about the blowing of the furnaces were wrong, and has put forward important new hypotheses about the later use of the site. The work has also clearly justified archaeological approaches to industrial sites.
