Ironbridge

- the world's first iron bridge built in 1779 over the River Severn.

I collected my friend P this morning to start our journey up to The Lakes with the "Photo Gang" of four.  We are meeting the others tomorrow at our house for the week in Ambleside, but P and I decided to head up a day early and are spending the night in Lancaster.

We stopped in Ironbridge for a few hours for lunch, and enjoyed a walk over and under the bridge and along the River Severn to the Museum of the Gorge, a recently restored former warehouse used for the transport of goods by river during the Industrial Revolution (extra). Over the years the building has been subjected to many flood events, the last in Feb this year. All they do is present the exhibits at levels above the worst of the floods and wait for the building to dry out ... it is a fact of life.

All told, it was a very enjoyable break in our journey, and even better (as you can see) we were blessed with blue skies and it was warm enough to wonder around in shirt sleeves and eat our lunch (and a sneaky bag of chips) overlooking the bridge.  It may be the last of the sun we see next week if the forecast is right! Watch this space...