Last weekend a group of us headed up to Ironbridge to the Museum of Iron to meet the esteemed John Powell, retired curator of the Coalbrookdale collection. John very kindly gave up his entire morning to give us a guided tour of the collection and to share his knowledge with us. This was of particular interest to Martin Smith, restoration specialist here at Ironart, as Martin is largely responsible for the restoration and repair of all the cast iron furniture within the business. His knowledge is already extensive and we all learnt a lot from the vist. Sadly, according to John, there is only a limited Coalbrookdale furniture archive available in existence as a vast number of the original records from the Coalbrookdale Foundry were deliberately destroyed in a family feud.

Our huge thanks go to John, and to the museum for having us all. We highly recommend a day out to the Coalbrookdale museums, they are very absorbing and the Enginuity exhibition next door is brilliant for kids (big and small!)