Isambard Kingdom Brunel (despite having a most singular name) was very versatile engineer. He designed a railway, its rolling stock and its major stations, several ships a couple of tunnels and a plethora of bridges. I pondered the extent of his prowess as I travelled westward from London at about 120 miles an hour on the very railway he built in the 1830s. My destination was Bristol, the end of his railway and the start of for his ships.
Of course he made errors in hindsight. His 7 foot gauge railway was abandoned in favour of the now standard 4 foot 8 inches. His ships were so far ahead of their time and so huge, they bankrupted the Great Western Railway and their builders. His bridges were so audacious that in the case of the Clifton Suspension Bridge it took 33 years to get it finished. But of course there was nothing wrong with the ideas it was generally the execution, by others, that let things down.
Bristol was the end of the Great Western Railway and it was from here that Brunel and the Board of Governors of the Railway decided that they would extend the railway all the way to America …and so they built ships. The SS Great Britain, launched in 1843, is still in Bristol. Rescued from the
mud in the Falklands in the 1970s she has been carefully preserved and restored. The Great Britain has the distinction of being the world’s first large, iron, ocean going steam and propeller driven ship. Before this it was mostly sail and paddle wheels.
She was a bit of a commercial failure for the Great Western Railway and after running aground and staying stuck for over a year, she was sold on and eventually found success shipping immigrants to Australia. A role she performed for almost 30 years.
The Great Britain now sits in the dry dock in which she was built alongside Bristol’s floating dock. A tour of her is fascinating. Beneath the glass ‘sea’ that seals her lower half from the corrosive elements you wander around her keel. She was the largest iron ship in the world when built. In fact she was the largest ship full stop. By a long way. The fact that she is still in one piece (mostly) is a testament to the quality of her construction.
Above the ‘sea’ she sits majestically with a multitude of coloured flags flying from her masts looking much as she must have the day she was l
aunched. I am sure she was a vast step forward in passenger comfort compared to the days of sail, but I am not sure that I would have wanted to have been cooped up in the pokey first class accommodation, living on top of your neighbours for the 62 day voyage to Australia, let alone the steerage accommodation. I’ll take cattle class with Qantas thanks.
So, it’s been trains and ships… next stop a bridge. The Avon River as it passes downstream from Bristol cuts its way through a very deep gorge, and across the top of the gorge flies the Clifton Suspension Bridge. I took a ferry across the river from the Great Britain and then walked a couple of miles around a loop in the river. It was a warm (well relatively for early Spring in England) and sunny day, just perfect for a stroll. I was quite familiar with the Clifton Suspension Bridge having seen documentaries about it and its designer, but I was not prepared for just how high it is above the river. It looks miles up. A slender spider’s web of structure stretched across the gorge between two monumental towers on either side.
I stood staring at it for quite some time. – the river on one side, nothing but a thin stream between steep banks of mud waiting for the tide to come in and the dull roar of a highway on the other.
My ogling over I started up the zig-zag path that lead up from the river to the bridge. I can’t say I wasn’t gasping for breath at the top. Thankfully there was a handy bench with a quite delightful view of the bridge upon which I could recover.
I wasn’t intending to walk out onto the bridge, but curiosity got the better of me and I ventured halfway across before walking back. There is a rather a bit of movement from the cars rumbling past, but not enough to be genuinely
disconcerting. Oh, and it looked just as far down as it did up. Stringing the cables must have required a certain amount of… well… courage, 150 years ago.
The really nice thing about having walked all the way up to the bridge at Clifton was that my walk back to the train station was all down hill.
Of course he made errors in hindsight. His 7 foot gauge railway was abandoned in favour of the now standard 4 foot 8 inches. His ships were so far ahead of their time and so huge, they bankrupted the Great Western Railway and their builders. His bridges were so audacious that in the case of the Clifton Suspension Bridge it took 33 years to get it finished. But of course there was nothing wrong with the ideas it was generally the execution, by others, that let things down.
Bristol was the end of the Great Western Railway and it was from here that Brunel and the Board of Governors of the Railway decided that they would extend the railway all the way to America …and so they built ships. The SS Great Britain, launched in 1843, is still in Bristol. Rescued from the
mud in the Falklands in the 1970s she has been carefully preserved and restored. The Great Britain has the distinction of being the world’s first large, iron, ocean going steam and propeller driven ship. Before this it was mostly sail and paddle wheels.She was a bit of a commercial failure for the Great Western Railway and after running aground and staying stuck for over a year, she was sold on and eventually found success shipping immigrants to Australia. A role she performed for almost 30 years.
The Great Britain now sits in the dry dock in which she was built alongside Bristol’s floating dock. A tour of her is fascinating. Beneath the glass ‘sea’ that seals her lower half from the corrosive elements you wander around her keel. She was the largest iron ship in the world when built. In fact she was the largest ship full stop. By a long way. The fact that she is still in one piece (mostly) is a testament to the quality of her construction.
Above the ‘sea’ she sits majestically with a multitude of coloured flags flying from her masts looking much as she must have the day she was l
aunched. I am sure she was a vast step forward in passenger comfort compared to the days of sail, but I am not sure that I would have wanted to have been cooped up in the pokey first class accommodation, living on top of your neighbours for the 62 day voyage to Australia, let alone the steerage accommodation. I’ll take cattle class with Qantas thanks.So, it’s been trains and ships… next stop a bridge. The Avon River as it passes downstream from Bristol cuts its way through a very deep gorge, and across the top of the gorge flies the Clifton Suspension Bridge. I took a ferry across the river from the Great Britain and then walked a couple of miles around a loop in the river. It was a warm (well relatively for early Spring in England) and sunny day, just perfect for a stroll. I was quite familiar with the Clifton Suspension Bridge having seen documentaries about it and its designer, but I was not prepared for just how high it is above the river. It looks miles up. A slender spider’s web of structure stretched across the gorge between two monumental towers on either side.
I stood staring at it for quite some time. – the river on one side, nothing but a thin stream between steep banks of mud waiting for the tide to come in and the dull roar of a highway on the other.My ogling over I started up the zig-zag path that lead up from the river to the bridge. I can’t say I wasn’t gasping for breath at the top. Thankfully there was a handy bench with a quite delightful view of the bridge upon which I could recover.
I wasn’t intending to walk out onto the bridge, but curiosity got the better of me and I ventured halfway across before walking back. There is a rather a bit of movement from the cars rumbling past, but not enough to be genuinely
disconcerting. Oh, and it looked just as far down as it did up. Stringing the cables must have required a certain amount of… well… courage, 150 years ago.The really nice thing about having walked all the way up to the bridge at Clifton was that my walk back to the train station was all down hill.
