Darby Houses, Coalbrookdale

Eagle Slayer (John Bell), bronze sculpture cast by the Coalbrookdale Company around 1848. The piece was purchased to commemorate the founder Chairman of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, E Bruce Ball (1903-1985) and is on display in Rosehill House.

Date	30 March 2015
Location	Coalbrookdale	SJ 66680 04967; 52.64140°N, 2.49385°W
Information	The Darby Houses in Coalbrookdale are one of the ten attractions run by the Iron Gorge Museum Trust and were the homes of various members of the family of Quaker ironmasters. Rosehill House was built in the 1720s and has been in the care of the Trust since 1978. Dale House served as the Manager’s House for the Coalbrookdale Company and its construction was started by Abraham Darby I, who in 1709 revolutionised iron smelting by using coke rather than charcoal. Dale House suffered from a 20th-century flat conversion, but is now in the process of being restored to its condition of the 1780s, the period when it was the residence of Abraham Darby III, who built the world’s first cast-iron arch bridge.

Darby Road, Coalbrookdale

Kitchen, Rosehill House

Kitchen, Rosehill House

Entrance to Dale House

Fireplace, Dale House