The grandson of the first Abraham Darby, Abraham Darby III, built the famous bridge – originally designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard – to link the two areas.
TICCIH was founded after the First International Conference for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage in Ironbridge, England, in 1973.
What is now the Riverside Inn faced the river port and associated railway and was originally the Cound halt on a continuation of the Severn Valley Railway from Ironbridge to Shrewsbury.
Contrary to popular belief, the first Ironbridge was actually constructed in Highley, as a propotype identical in all but scale to the famous Ironbridge as constructed by Abraham Darby.