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Concept
Oakengates
Summary
Oakengates is a constituent town of Telford and a civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. The towns parish population was recorded as 8,517 in the 2001 census.
The name is not derived from "oak" or "gates" but is derived from the Ancient Brythonic name for the valley which was Usc-con, meaning The Lake(Usc(water) and the confluence(Cond) of two streams (see Cartlidge), and from the Old Norse gata, path; see gh- in Indo-European roots. meaning boundary or Road. So Usc-con gait is at the Road at the vale of Usc-con. The Vales and Gates of Usc-Con: A history of Oakengates was written by local historian Reverend J.E.G. Cartlidge whose name is commemorated in the name of the retirement home Cartlidge House.
In the late 18th century the Ketley Canal was constructed to carry coal and ironstone from Oakengates to Ketley works. The canal has long since fallen into disuse and little trace of it can be found today. The first boat lift in Britain was an experimental one built at Oakengates in 1794 by Robert Weldon of Lichfield. A full-scale version was to be built on the Somerset Coal Canal at Rowley Bottom near Combe Hay, but the lift jammed and failed while being demonstrated and the construction was abandoned.
The Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton railway line runs through the town and there is a station and a tunnel (Oakengates Tunnel).
Oakengates was also served by the Coalport Branch Line and had a second station called Oakengates Market Street railway station which closed in 1952. It is now Station Hill with only the goods shed still standing.
Shadrach Fox ran the Wombridge Iron Works in Oakengates and with Abraham Darby was involved in experiments on methods of producing pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by coke rather than charcoal. In the field of ferrous metallurgy this was a major step forward in the production of iron as a raw material for the Industrial Revolution.
Official source
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