SS GREAT BRITAIN – BRISTOL
Brunel’s Steamship and Drydock Museum
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineering genius with the unlikely name was one of the visionaries of the United Kingdom’s advancement of the industrial age, voted in some poll as the second greatest Briton behind Winston Churchill, though some might argue. Brunel certainly was responsible for some of the lasting advances in transportation. Rarely noted for being the first, his achievements stand as examples of a grand vision. Born in Portsmouth, the son of a French engineer, most of Brunel’s works are focused in the southwest of England and Bristol. His work on the broad gage Great Western Railway (see Didcot Railway Museum) from London to Bristol brought fame, but his great steamships built in the Bristol dockyards left the days of sail in the past, and the SS Great Britain is unique among its of kind and one of the very few remaining of its era when sail turned to steam.
At the time of her launch in 1843, the SS Great Britain was the largest ship in the world and the first screw propeller driven ocean going iron-hulled passenger steam ship. Brunel’s advances using a combination of sail and steam power to drive the more reliable and faster underwater propulsion over the previous paddle wheels of earlier designs, ushered in the great age of transatlantic ocean travel. The great sleek ship which made voyages from Bristol to New York and later San Francisco, a route previously ruled by the Clipper sailing ship, the SS Great Britain could carry 252 passengers in first and second class and 130 crew.
The SS Great Britain exhibit site at the revitalized Bristol Docks provides a unique look at both the lifestyle and engineering of a great ocean-going steamer of the early Victorian era, but a surprise under-the-surface exploration of the advances in ship building. At first glance from the dockside, the great ship appears to be floating in the harbor waters of the Severn River, but on closer inspection, and with a step down the steps, you discover that the ship is not floating at all, but resting in the historic dry dock built by Brunel and the “water” is a sparkling glass “roof”. The dry dock allows a close-up look at the iron rivets of the hull and the great outsized early propellers which drove her through Atlantic waves. The dry dock is also hermetically sealed and climate controlled, with air maintained as dry as a desert to stop the corrosion of moisture.
Where the SS Great Britain now rests was the original Great Western Dockyard, where Brunel’s Great Western Steamship Company, established in 1839 by the same investors who backed Brunel’s railways to expand into ocean travel, building Brunel’s first ship the Great Western. The dockyard encompassed a massive fabrication workshop, steam engine works, an engineering drawing office and the dry dock. Much of the works site was heavily damaged by German bombing in WWII. The dockside area surrounding the ship is now a recreated port as if the ship is about to sail, with the cargo, crates and luggage waiting to be loaded, with sights and sounds of a bustling 19th Century passenger port.
Stroll on-board the decks of the great ship and venture below to the luxurious for their day cabin spaces, common areas and crew quarters. Audio recordings recreate the lives and experiences of passengers of a century and a half ago, allowing you to listen in on conversations, hear stories passengers and crew have to tell, explored the decided cramped galley, or have a look at the massive fly wheel of the great steam engine which drove the innovative propellers below.
Entrance to the decks of the ship is through the Dockyard Museum which tells the fascinating story of Brunel and his dockyard advances and his great ship, with her long history as a luxury passenger liner, an emigrant carrier and later life as coal ship until sinking in the South Atlantic, only to be raised and returned home to Bristol.
Visiting Brunel's SS Great Britain
The SS Great Britain is located at the far end berth of the historic Bristol Dockyards. The Dockyard Museum and SS Great Britain exhibit is open, every day (except 24 and 25 Dec. and the second Monday in January), Spring and summer open hours are 9:30 am to 5:30 pm, with fall and winter hours 10:00 am to 4:30 pm, with last entrance an hour before closing. Admission prices are £13.75 for adults, £7 for children 5 to 17, £10.95 for students, £12.50 for seniors, with children under 4 free. For an extra £10 you can climb aloft in the rigging, or for a more involving visit, follow the mystery of the ship’s mysterious Captain Gray. The Dockyard Café Bar is located alongside the ship. There is a pay and display car park with reduced rates, or take one of the harbor water taxis. © Bargain
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SS Great Britain
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SEE ALSO:
GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL - EDWARD II & HARRY POTTER
STONEHENGE - NEOLITHIC MYSTERY OF WILTSHIRE
TANGMERE MILITARY AIR MUSEUM SOUTH ENGLAND
CREWE RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE - CHESHIRE
LONDON'S TOWER BRIDGE EXHIBITION
