In March 1776, the Act to build a bridge received Royal assent. In 1775, a subscription raised funds of between £3000 to £4000 (equivalent to £361,000 to £482,000 in 2016), and Abraham Darby III, the grandson of Abraham Darby I and an ironmaster working at Coalbrookdale, was appointed treasurer to the project. ĭuring the winter of 1773–74, local newspapers advertised a proposal to petition Parliament for leave to construct an iron bridge with a single 120-foot (37 m) span. Although he specialised in the design of chimneypieces and other items of interior decoration, and in funerary monuments, he had also previously designed both wooden and stone bridges. In 1773, architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard wrote to his 'iron mad' friend and local ironmaster, John Wilkinson of Broseley, to suggest building a bridge out of cast iron. An iron bridge was partly constructed at Lyons in 1755, but was abandoned for reasons of cost, and a 72-foot-10-inch (22.2 m) span wrought iron footbridge over an ornamental waterway was erected in Kirklees, Yorkshire, in 1769. The Iron Bridge was the first of its kind to be constructed, although not the first to be considered nor the first iron bridge of any kind. The steepness and instability of the banks was problematic for building a bridge, and there was no point where roads on opposite sides of the river converged. The use of the river by boat traffic and the steep sides of the gorge meant that any bridge should ideally be of a single span, and sufficiently high to allow tall ships to pass underneath. The Iron Bridge was therefore proposed to link the industrial town of Broseley with the smaller mining town of Madeley and the industrial centre of Coalbrookdale. The River Severn was used as a key trading route, but it was also a barrier to travel around the deep Ironbridge Gorge, especially between the then important industrial parishes of Broseley and Madeley, the nearest bridge being at Buildwas 2 miles (3.2 km) away.

Ībraham Darby I first smelted local iron ore with coke made from Coalbrookdale coal in 1709, and in the coming decades Shropshire became a centre for industry due to the low price of fuel from local mines. With the river providing a means of transport, the local area was an important centre of the emerging Industrial Revolution. The Ironbridge Gorge was formed at the end of the last ice age by the overflowing of Lake Lapworth, which resulted in the exposure of useful deposits of resources such as coal, iron ore, fire clay and limestone near the surface where they were readily mined. The bridge, the adjacent settlement of Ironbridge and the Ironbridge Gorge form the UNESCO Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. After being in a poor state of repair for much of its life, extensive restoration works in the latter half of the 20th century have protected the bridge.

Tolls for pedestrians were collected until 1950, when the bridge was transferred into public ownership. In 1934 it was designated a scheduled monument and closed to vehicular traffic.

The bridge crosses the Ironbridge Gorge with a main span of 100 ft 6 in (30.63 m), allowing sufficient clearance for boats to pass underneath. After initial uncertainty about the use of iron, construction took place over 2 years, with Abraham Darby III responsible for the ironworks. To cope with the instability of the banks and the need to maintain a navigable channel in the river, a single span iron bridge was proposed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. The geography of the deep Ironbridge Gorge, formed by glacial action during the last ice age, meant that there are industrially useful deposits of coal, iron ore, limestone and fire clay present near the surface where they are readily mined, but also that it was difficult to build a bridge across the river at this location. Its success inspired the widespread use of cast iron as a structural material, and today the bridge is celebrated as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution.

Opened in 1781, it was the first major bridge in the world to be made of cast iron. The Iron Bridge is a cast iron arch bridge that crosses the River Severn in Shropshire, England.

Avon cast iron bird bell