I was planning on doing this yesterday, but Storm Arwen had other ideas and we were one of the 200,000 Northumberland homes that ended up without power for much of Saturday (02:00-15:00ish for us). Still, all is calm again now so let's have another go.
Whilst my entries of the previous two years, Newcastle and Edinburgh, have reflected the area of the UK that I've called home for thirty years now, I am by origin a Shropshire Lad and Max's excellent idea to emphasise the environmental angle this year has led me back to my roots (or about twenty five miles from them, anyway). Where better to consider Formula E's ecological message than in the self-proclaimed "Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution"? (...brushing aside the fact that the Industrial Revolution was a gradual process that doesn't really have a single starting place or time). The Ironbridge Gorge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust manages ten separate museums and historic sites preserving the history of this important area.
The inaugural ePrix of the Ironbridge Gorge takes place on a 4.9 mile/7.9 km circuit that begins alongside the River Severn and climbs up and down the valley carved out by Britain's longest river after the Ice Age Lake Lapworth overflowed. The figure-of-eight layout common to my previous two entries has had to be (regretfully) abandoned this time, but this circuit still shares with its predecessors the attributes of greater than average length and some testing gradients.
It also serves to highlight the causes and effects of climate change in various ways. Whilst the smoke and grime that once filled the Gorge from the blast furnaces and mines that followed in the wake of Abraham Darby I's discovery of a method for producing pig iron with coke rather than the more expensive charcoal in the early 1700s have now been replaced by rolling woodland, the settlements alongside the Severn are still vulnerable to flooding; less than two years ago, in February 2020, the houses on the Wharfage alongside the startline of this circuit were partly underwater.
For those who feel that the venue is a little too rural for Formula E, the map shows that it lies on the doorstep (and runs a little way into) the new town of Telford, formed in the 1960s from the amalgamation of several smaller towns and villages. With a population of 140,000 Telford is by far Shropshire's largest settlement, with twice the population of the next largest, the county town of Shrewsbury. Indeed, almost one in three of all Salopians live in Telford (not counting we exiles, of course).
The lap begins on the High Street in the heart of Ironbridge village (the black line on the map) and climbs continuously up Madeley Road and through the long left turn past the Golden Ball Inn. Cresting the rise as it enters Madeley, one of the originally independent towns that is now merely a district of Telford, the circuit passes the Abraham Darby Sports Centre, which will function as the eVillage and Fan Zone.
Curving gently right, this section ends at the Lees Farm Roundabout, which will be the location of the Attack Mode Activation Point (marked in yellow on the map); whilst the circuit proper turns left round the roundabout, those taking Attack Mode will go right for the longer, "wrong way", run round to the exit for Parkway. Passing the BP garage, the circuit reaches its highest point at 475 feet/145 metres, some 340 feet/105 metres above the startline.
Taking the long right around Woodside Roundabout, Parkway runs along the northern edge of Madeley to Madeley Roundabout and onto Legges Way which begins the descent back into Ironbridge Gorge. About halfway down, the circuit passes the Blists Hill Victorian Town, a recreation of a late nineteenth century settlement which was always on my daughters' to-do list as children when we were visiting the grandparents...and still is now they're in their mid-twenties. The Chip Shop and Sweet Shop vie for their favourite place, but their father prefers the pub. I'm Salopian, it's genetic...
Legges Way becomes Coalport Road and then Coalport High Street before reaching the river once more and turning sharp right on The Lloyds. This is the lowest point of the circuit, at 124 feet/38 metres and leads onto a narrow section that is unlikely to see any overtaking but which twists and turns, and rises and falls, in a fine test of car handling and driver skill. Those with a good blend of both can make up much time on their less fortunate brethren through here.
Towards the end of The Lloyds, the circuit passes Lloyds Cottage, a remarkable eighteenth century dwelling whose crooked appearance bears testimony to the long history of subsidence in the Gorge, exacerbated by centuries of mine works. In 1952, almost directly across the river from Lloyds Cottage, a major landslip in the Salthouses area of the village of Jackfield destroyed 27 houses and narrowed the River Severn by 15 yards.
At the end of The Lloyds the circuit turns left onto the Jackfield Free Bridge and crosses the Severn for its final section. Climbing up from the bridge, a left-right chicane leads onto Ladywood which takes the circuit back down towards Ironbridge village. The visitor car park on the right of Ladywood provides ample space for the pits (marked in red on the map) and a sharp right brings the cars onto the Iron Bridge itself for a showpiece run back to the startline.
Cast in 1779 and completed two years later, the first iron bridge in the world was created by Abraham Darby III, grandson of Abraham I, and consists of a single arch spanning 100 feet/30 metres across the Gorge. It was the only bridge on the Severn to survive the great flood of 1795, inspiring the construction of similar bridges all across the world.
Though closed to traffic except for pedestrians in 1934, when it became a scheduled monument, several restoration projects since the 1970s mean that (in the fantasy world of this thread) obtaining permission for the Formula E field to run across the bridge a few dozen times over a single weekend is unlikely to cause more damage than the estimated one million pairs of feet that walk across it during the rest of the year.
CIRCUIT PHOTOS:
1) Looking back along the startline with the Tontine Inn on the right and the Iron Bridge on the left (and some TNF-friendly vehicles in shot)
2) The highest point of the circuit, the BP petrol station on Parkway approaching the Woodside Roundabout
3) The descent of Legges Way, passing the entrance to Blists Hill Victorian Town
4) Lloyds Cottage
5) The Jackfield Free Bridge
6) Ladywood, with the pitlane entrance on the right
Edited by Alan Lewis, 28 November 2021 - 19:56.
This topic is locked
