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In 1786, ironmaster William Reynolds directed miners to drive a tunnel into the side of the Severn Gorge from a riverside meadow in Madeley. Not far away on Blists Hill, Reynolds had recently sunk shafts to the coal seams which lay between 440 and 600 feet below the surface. He intended that the tunnel should be used for a canal, which would reach the shafts about 150 feet below ground, reducing the distance the coal had to be lifted, and enabling it to be conveyed to the riverside on the level by boat rather than down a steep hill. About 300 yards into the tunnel the miners struck a spring of natural bitumen. Reynolds immediately recognised the scientific interest of the discovery and sent samples for analysis to various scientists, including Samuel Morse, secretary of the Society of Arts, who, wrote to Abraham Darby III in December 1787, asking him to tell Reynolds that experiments he had made showed that the properties of the bitumen were superior to those of tar made from coal. Reynolds recognised the commercial potential of his discovery. The bitumen was collected in wells and inside was boiled in large cauldrons inside the mouth of the tunnel to convert it into pitch, to be used for preserving timber and other purposes for which coal or wood tar would normally be employed. The tunnel was visited by several eminent scientists, including Erasmus Darwin, and it came to be regarded as one of the wonders of the Gorge.

Category: Place , Process , Product

Institute: Ironbridge Gorge Museum