The 'Madeley Wood Company' was formed in 1756 with the foundation of its ironworks on the River Severn at Bedlam about 1 mile west of the Blists Hill site. The company held mineral leases in Madeley Parish enabling it to mine coal and iron ore. When it opened in 1790, the company had good access to the Shropshire Canal which ran immediately to the east of the Blists Hill ironworks site. The proximity of raw materials coupled to a local means of transporting finished product lead to the company building another blast furnace at Blists Hill in 1832.
Two more furnaces were added in 1840 and 1844, making a total of three.
Operations continued in the production of pig iron until 1912 when the ironworks ceased production.
The post closure site history is not well known and the whole site was allowed to grow over the ruins, however during the late 1950s the site was completely buried by waste/spoil dumping which totally buried the furnace bases.
In the 1970s the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust began clearing and restoring the works incorporating it into the Blists Hill Open Air Museum where restoration was recently completed of its extant structures.