( ♪ Four Loom Weaver, Abel Selaocoe ♪)
Deep in the West Midlands, the River Severn carves its way through the Shropshire countryside.
It's the longest river in Great Britain and its name is thought to be derived from a mythical
nymph, Sabrina.
Shropshire is peppered with the stunning Blue Remembered Hills that inspired the poet A.
E. Housman but this landscape is also the crucible where the industrial revolution was
forged.
As the River Severn cuts a path through a deep gorge, a monument to that tumultous era
looms over the water. The Iron Bridge. The stately arches of cast iron gracefully belie
the fire and force that went into smelting the structure into shape. The bridge was the
first of its kind in the world, standing in testament to Britian's pioneering of industry
on a mass scale.
It's hard to believe that this is the cradle of the industrial revolution. Today it feels
like a peaceful green haven. The Iron Bridge straddles the steep sides of the Severn Gorge
and it's a testament to the ingenuity of the ironmasters who worked here for centuries.
All of the raw materials required to produce iron can be found here: iron ore, limestone
and coal. But it's not just the raw materials. The actual shape of the landscape played its
part. The steep sides of the gorge meant that water could easily be harnessed to power the
water wheels that in turn provided blast for the furnaces. And then there's the River Severn
and this was the super-highway of its day. It enabled finished products to be taken away
to market.
Coal has been mined here since the middle ages but it was directly after the reformation
when land owned by monasteries came into the hands of entrepreneurs that industry really
began to take off. That great symbol of the age of industry, the Iron Bridge, was begun
in 1777 and finally opened to traffic on New Year's Day 1781 and it's remained open more
or less every since.
The bridge had a revolutionary impact on both
technology and architecture and UNESCO declared it a masterpiece of man's creativity when
they granted Iron Bridge Gorge world heritage site status in 1986. The visitors who come
here today are only the latest in a long line of people who have been awed by this incredible
structure. Few records exist about how the bridge was actually built but some interesting
experiments have been undertaken in recent times. But we know that a large wooden scaffold
was erected and that the majority of the work was undertaken in a few short months and without
any major incidents. It was truly a marvel of its age. Abraham Derby III, one of the
most important ironmasters in the area and one of a long line of Derbys to work here,
oversaw the work and it quickly became something of a tourist attraction with people coming
from throughout the country and even abroad to see it. Writers, artists and poets were
all struck by it and many fell back on the language of mythology to describe the bridge
in this environment of industry. Gods and demons were described as being at work among
the smoke and flames of the furnaces. At this time, iron founding demanded huge skill and
strength. But as the industrial revolution developed machines increasingly took over
from people.
Iron Bridge is a potent reminder of how industry transformed England and this imposing structure
deserves a song which also has its roots in the industrial era. The Four Loom Weaver,
sung for us by Abel Selaocoe, is one of our most iconic industrial ballads and it tells
the human story that lies behind the mighty feats of engineering and manufacturing like
the Iron Bridge. It features the lament of a poor weaver reduced to starvation and eating
nettles. Originally derived from a song called the Poor Cotton Weaver, it was rewritten as
this version during the economic downturn at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, at a time
when many hand weavers were losing their jobs due to the rise of the steam-driven weaving
machines. It's a poignant document of the inequality that was rife in the industrial
era and the sense of dispossession people felt as the onward march of progress reduced
them to units
of production.