Museums

Step back in time and join the ‘Victorian’ townsfolk as they go about their daily lives in this recreation of a small community at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. A visit to the bank allows you to change your modern money for old fashioned currency to spend in the town’s shops and local pub.

Let your imagination take over at Enginuity, the hands-on interactive centre that unravels the workings of everyday objects using a simulated X-ray machine, lets you pull a 10 ton locomotive or generate electricity from flowing water, build an earthquake proof tower or challenge the robotic arm.

This museum celebrating the history of early iron making sits opposite the furnace used by the Darby family to help shape the industrial world. The museum now houses a spectacular collection of fine art casting, which gives legacy to the great skills of the Coalbrookdale Company craftsmen and the versatility of Iron.

The Darby family’s historic homes, Rosehill House and Dale house provide an insight into the gracious lives of the family as you read extracts from their family papers and the dressing up in Quaker costume available at Rosehill House.

This Gothic style warehouse situated on the banks of the River Severn where goods from the Coalbrookdale Company once began their journey to the rest of the world now explains the significance of the area and why it ranks as a World Heritage Site.

Across the river from Jackfield you’ll find the Coalport China Museum home to the famous firm until 1926 and filled with the national collections of Coalport and Caughley in the original buildings.   Then dare to walk the 100 yards through the Tar Tunnel where miners discovered a spring of natural bitumen in 1787.

Housed in the original Craven Dunnill Factory, Jackfield Tile Museum celebrates the decorative tiles that once graced the Empire. The museum consists of classic galleries, period room settings, hands-on workshops and a fully operational tile manufacturing and restoration business that was once the world centre of the tile industry.

This factory closed its doors in 1957 and today is a wonderfully preserved time capsule of ancient local history. Once famed for its clay pipes that were exported worldwide, now tools lie on benches, clay is stacked in the yard as if the workers left moments before your arrival.

Built by Abraham Darby III and now recognised as one of the great symbols of the Industrial Revolution, the remarkable structure still dominates the small town that bears its name.