The Landscape of Upper Coalbrookdale
In the last three years we have been looking intensively at the landscape of the upper part of Coalbrookdale. Originally this began as an offshoot of the CHART project, with a building survey of a seventeenth century building undertaken in 2001. However our exploration of this part of the landscape has become a project in its own right. Because of its focus around the long-established ironworking complex in the Upper Dale, little archaeological attention had previously been paid to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century designed landscape surrounding it. This interdisciplinary research project brings together a wide range of researchers from different institutions, including the University of Bristol , the University of Birmingham and the University of Coventry as well as our own staff at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
Excavation and survey work in the former walled garden was undertaken by Kate Page-Smith as part of an MA in Landscape Archaeology at the University of Bristol.
More information on this project will be added to this page later this year. A paper on some aspects of this project will shortly be published in the forthcoming Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Monograph on 'Estate Landscapes' (edited by Kate Giles and Jonathan Finch of the University of York).
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 Detail from a mid Eighteenth Century view of Coalbrookdale, providing evidence for use and meaning in the landscape 
 Excavating the 18th century walled garden
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