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Wrens Nest Lane, TELFORD, TF1 5HL

Local boozer in Ketley.

Local amenities for the people of Ketley.

The Wren's Nest is just to the right, and here's the sign to draw in the punters in front of a small water-pumping station. I wonder if anyone could see the irony in this photo?

A new Inn Sign for the Wrens Nest public house at Ketley Town. A great improvement on the former bland Banks's brewery sign.

A shallow pool at the rear of houses on Morgan Way, Ketley. There is a possibility (it's speculation on my part) that this may be the lower receiving pool for tub-boats at the bottom of the long-vanished Ketley Incline, whose location was just uphill of this point. It was used to bring tub-boats laden with coal and ore from the upper part of the Ketley Canal to a lower level, from where they moved to feed a foundry in Ketley Dingle. If this is so, then one likely contender for the route of the incline is the wooded bank shown in Image On the other hand, it could just be a random pond.

The cars & nearest houses here are on Woodside Close, whilst the white house beyond is Hillside Farm, and dates from around 1800. The centre-line of the photo follows, as closely as I can ascertain, the line of the Ketley Incline. This was the country's first commercially-operated Inclined Plane, built around 1788 as a means of lowering tub boats from the Ketley Canal to a long-vanished foundry just to the NW of this point. The boats carried coal and ironstone to the foundry, and were lowered on L-shaped rails with a braking system managed via a windlass at the top of the plane. Nothing remains visible at ground level of the incline, all surface signs having been removed by subsequent building works over the years, although there may be some underground traces which could be found by careful archaeology. The trustees of the Blists Hill Museum have apparently shown interest in some tunnels Image that lie beneath the garden of Hillside Farm, although whether these are associated with the incline is unknown.

Right outside the rear of Hillside Farm lies this tunnel entrance - roughly 2'6" wide and 3' high. It heads off in an easterly direction for maybe 20 yards, then opens up into a high chamber Image, from which it then takes a more northerly direction towards Ketley Hall, although local knowledge suggests that the far end of it has long since been closed off. Purpose and original use are unknown, but it is neatly brick-lined throughout (albeit a bit dirty on the floor) and 'feels old' in the sense that it's probably 18th century or thereabouts. Given that the whole area was heavily mined for coal, ironstone and various other minerals in the 18th & 19th centuries, it's quite likely to have been some sort of drain for a nearby mine. It also lies very close to the site of the former Ketley Canal Incline, all surface trace of which has now vanished. The Blists Hill Museum staff have investigated it in the past, but I have not tracked down their conclusions yet.

Roughly 20 yards inside Image lies this well-built chamber, which is about 15 or 18 feet high. It's immediately under the back garden of Hillside Farm. To the left of the point I took this picture (which is looking more or less directly upwards) there's another arm of the tunnel which apparently leads to a further identical chamber a little further on, before heading onwards in the direction of Ketley Hall. All very mysterious at the moment.

Possibly the first successfully-operated and commercially viable Inclined Plane in the UK, built around 1788 as a means of lowering tub boats from the Ketley Canal Image to a long-vanished foundry just to the NW of this point. The boats carried coal and ironstone to the foundry, and were lowered on L-shaped rails with a braking system managed via a windlass at the top of the plane. There seems to be very little (reliable) documented evidence of the exact route of the incline, and if any trace remained 'on the ground' into the 20th century it has been removed by a combination of garden landscaping in the grounds of Hillside Farm on the left here, plus the efforts of Telford Development Corporation from the 1960s onwards. However, a combination of detective work using the best available old maps that we can find, plus some local knowledge from the long-term residents of the farm, suggest that the centre of this photo (ie through the car and the brick outbuilding behind it) tracks the most probable line of the incline. At the top of the garden there is a fence, immediately behind which lies the road bearing the name Image