SJ6902 : Engine House, Hay Inclined Plane
taken 13 years ago, near to Coalport, Telford And Wrekin, England
The Hay Incline Plane is a drop of 207 feet from the section of the Shropshire Canal at the top to Coalport at the bottom.
For more than 100 years, between the 1790s and 1980s, coal, iron and other products of the local industries were moved down to the Coalport Canal at the bottom of the incline to be taken, from there, onto the River Severn and transported to all parts of the country. Six of these canal inclines were built in this area between 1791 and 1797. The Hay Incline Plane is the only one which survives and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
The Incline generally worked by counterbalancing but, when no counterbalance weight was available, other power had to be used. In 1791, when the Incline was first in use, horses were used to power it. By 1793 a steam engine had been installed in a brick engine house the remains of which can be seen at the top of the Incline.
The last use of the incline is thought to have been in 1894.
Blists Hill Victorian Town, originally called Blists Hill Open Air Museum, was opened in 1973, and has been slowly growing ever since. Built on a former industrial complex in the Madeley area of Telford, it is one of ten museums operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (Link ).
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Blists Hill was an industrial region consisting of a brick and tile works, blast furnaces and coal, iron and fire clay mines. A short section of the Shropshire Canal runs across the site to the Hay Inclined Plane, which transported boats up and down the hill from Blists Hill to Coalport.
Many of the museum's buildings are recreations of buildings which stood in the area, replicas of those still standing elsewhere or original buildings that have been relocated to the museum. There are also features that were already part of the industrial site (eg the brick and tile works, the blast furnaces, Hay Inclined Plane, the canal etc).
More information can be found on the Ironbridge Museums’ website Link
and this Link Wikipedia article