Help us create a People’s History of Telford
Touch Telford is a whole toy box full of playful ideas for exploring our town. Anything that takes us off our predictable paths and jolts us into a new awareness of what is hidden but right in front of us
The story of our town through 100 items that you can touch for free within the boundary of Telford and Wrekin
Telford has a short history (53 years) but was built on a location whose history goes back to the beginnings of time. The custodians of our history have curated it most notably at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum and at the county archives in Shrewsbury. Their curation tells only part of the story and this project aims to tell the story from the ground beneath our feet upwards.
The geology, the walls, foundations, and footpaths tell a far more interesting story that the people of Telford enjoy quietly every day because it is often at the end of their road or sometimes in their back garden.
It wasn’t kings and queens, iron masters, coal mine owners who shaped Telford but geological processes, navigators, coal miners, iron workers and more recently earth movers, open cast miners, house, road and rail builders with assistance from civil engineers, town planners and individuals who had a vision for how the area could thrive and prosper in the future.
This part of Telford’s history isn’t captured in the museums or by the memorials its just all around us, possibly neglected, probably with out a sign to shout out about it but for local people defining the place we live in.
Nominate your own part of Telford’s history
We are suggesting 8 categories categories covering periods in Telford’s history, would like to identify 10 items for each period and identify a local ‘expert’ for each period who can assist in curating the items
Because this is a people’s history, we want to set some guidelines for what we will include: –
• You don’t have to pay to see it
• You must be able to touch and provide a 3words location for it
• It needs to be within the boundary of Telford and Wrekin
We will use our website and social media to gather suggestions and use polls to identify the ‘top 10’ in each category using #TouchTelford
You can submit your own nominations by completing and submitting a form on our website
Each item will need a photo, a description of no more than 300 characters, a what3word location and if possible, a linked artefact, poem or story that could be displayed in an exhibition and a person who can talk passionately about the site
