The first bridge designed and built under Telford's superintendence was one of no great magnitude, across the river Severn at Montford, about four miles west of Shrewsbury. It was a stone bridge of three elliptical arches, one of 58 feet and two of 55 feet span each. The Severn at that point is deep and narrow, and its bed and banks are of alluvial earth. It was necessary to make the foundations very secure, as the river is subject to high floods; and this was effectuality accomplished by means of coffer-dams. The building was substantially executed in red sandstone, and proved a very serviceable bridge, forming part of the great high road from Shrewsbury into Wales. It was finished in the year 1792. In the same year, we find Telford engaged as an architect in preparing the designs and superintending the construction of the new parish church of St. Mary Magdalen at Bridgenorth. It stands at the end of Castle Street, near to the old ruined fortress perched upon the bold red sandstone bluff on which the upper part of the town is built. The situation of the church is very fine, and an extensive view of the beautiful vale of the Severn is obtained from it. Telford's design is by no means striking; "being," as he said, "a regular Tuscan elevation; the inside is as regularly Ionic: its only merit is simplicity and uniformity; it is surmounted by a Doric tower, which contains the bells and a clock." A graceful Gothic church would have been more appropriate to the situation, and a much finer object in the landscape; but Gothic was not then in fashion--only a mongrel mixture of many styles, without regard to either purity or gracefulness. The church, however, proved comfortable and commodious, and these were doubtless the points to which the architect paid most attention. [Image] St. Mary Magdalen, Bridgenorth. His completion of the church at Bridgenorth to the satisfaction of the inhabitants, brought Telford a commission, in the following year, to erect a similar edifice at Coalbrookdale. But in the mean time, to enlarge his knowledge and increase his acquaintance with the best forms of architecture, he determined to make a journey to London and through some of the principal towns of the south of England. He accordingly visited Gloucester, Worcester, and Bath, remaining several days in the last-mentioned city. He was charmed beyond expression by his journey through the manufacturing districts of Gloucestershire, more particularly by the fine scenery of the Vale of Stroud. The whole seemed to him a smiling scene of prosperous industry and middle-class comfort.