300 years ago in 2009 at Aga’s foundry in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, Abraham Darby first smelted iron ore with coke – primarily to make cast-iron cooking pots and the innovation triggered the entire Industrial Revolution – hence the foundry is globally acknowledged to be the birthplace of industry. The Group has made cooking pots there for 300 years, progressing into the
production of solid fuel fires and cast-iron ranges. The tradition continued after the Second World War with the introduction of the famous Aga and Rayburn cookers, which are only made at Coalbrookdale for both home and export markets.
In 1707 Abraham Darby patented a method of moulding and casting domestic iron cooking pots in sand. To exploit the full potential of his ideas he needed a blast furnace in which to produce his own iron. It was this need that drew him to the Severn and to Coalbrookdale and its well established ironworks.
In 1709 in the steep wooded valley of Coalbrookdale, Abraham Darby smelted iron ore using coke as a fuel instead of charcoal. It was a creative leap that would allow the iron industry to break free from the restrictions of needing resources – water and timber – which were immediately to hand and to expand dramatically, exploiting the seemingly unlimited potential of fossil fuels and steam power. Abraham Darby’s casting techniques for cooking pots were used to make cylinders for steam engines and with that whole new industrial opportunities opened up.
For a time in the 18th Century, Coalbrookdale was the centre of the industrial world. The Ironbridge over the River Severn built by Abraham Darby III, completed in 1781, showed what could be done with cast-iron.
The innovations and cycles of industrial development that radiated out from the events of 1709 have changed how people live, work and communicate across the globe – but cooking and heating the home have always been at the heart of the Coalbrookdale foundry. Today, Aga’s foundry manager is the 32nd successor of Abraham Darby himself.
In 1959 to celebrate the 250th anniversary, Allied Ironfounders, pre cursors to Aga Rangemaster, excavated remains of Darby’s original furnace and established a Museum of Ironfounding. Today the site is cared for by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
The foundry - that is acknowledged as the birthplace of industry - became in 1986 one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites.