Bristol, England

This wasn't my first visit to Bristol, but it was the first extended visit during which I got to take photographs. This is, if I'm not mistaken, the Albert Lodge, which is in the Clifton neighborhood (if I'm remembering correctly).

This is called the Arch House, which as I recall is close to the Albert Lodge. It has a deli in it, as you can see from the sign. I presume its heritage predates the deli, though.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is probably the most famous landmark in the Clifton area. It started as one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's earliest projects, but was not completed until 1864, five years after Brunel's death. Much of the delay was financial, as several of the sponsoring companies went bankrupt. Because it wasn't a railway bridge, it didn't benefit from the success of any of Brunel's railway companies. In fact, the opposite was true. As late as 1851, materials were taken from the Clifton project in order to build the Royal Albert Bridge on the Great Western Railway (also called the Saltash bridge). Eventually, the Clifton Bridge was completed with chains (it's a suspension bridge, but uses chains instead of cables) taken from the Hungerford Suspension Bridge into Charing Cross Station in London. At that time (1860), the Charing Cross Bridge was being rebuilt. Part of the impetus was to memorialize Brunel following his death.

This is a memorial plaque on the bridge, albeit added in 1986, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the foundation stone, rather than to discuss Brunel in any depth.

This is a side view from the bridge, looking north towards the Clifton Observatory.

This is a view of the River Avon from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, looking south towards the city centre of Bristol. Although the Avon is associated with Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, it is also the main river through Bristol, and traditionally Bristol's access to the Bristol Channel. This is not insignificate historically as for several centuries Bristol's port was the most important aspect of its economy.

This shot shows the motorized cradle used for maintenance of the bridge. I actually don't know what year this was installed, but it doesn't appear in older pictures. Certainly, prior to it's being added, maintenance of the bridge was probably tricky. I haven't been able to locate information on fatalities among the maintenance crews before as opposed to after the cradle's installation.

Here's another shot of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, taken from the embankment along the Avon. Getting far enough back, but not too far back, can be difficult without a wide angle lens.

This is the entrance to the Clifton Rocks Railway's lower station. This was a funicular railway that operated from 1893 until 1936 between Clifton and the Avon Harbour at the bottom. The entire railway was underground, in the mountainside. Ever since its closure, it has remained a tourist attraction, and occassionally toured with qualified guides. It's actually been a tourist attraction as an abandoned railway for far longer than it was an active railway. In recent years, the trust that preserves its remains has considered restoring it to operation, but a recent price estimate was around 15 million pounds.

Although it has those upright concrete supports you can see, the old Clifton Rocks Railway's Bristol Harbour station can still be identified as such. Note the lettering. Actually, the lettering was the only reason that I found it.

I found this smokestack on this building close to the famous Albion dockyards. I can't be sure, but it looks like it could have originally be a funnel on a steamship.

A lot of the Albion dockyards aren't open to the public even today, although there is some access because a lot of private boat owners dock nearby. While Albion handle far smaller boats and ships than in the past, they still do a fair amount of business in refitting. I don't know the status of these railway sidings, but the Bristol Docks Railway, now primarily a steam tourist railway, is nearby.

Here's the official entrance to the Albion Dockyards in Bristol. Established in 1845, Albion played a major role in the closing years of the British Empire, which was heavily dependent on shipping. The primary cause for its decline, as well as the decline of Bristol as a port, was that in spite of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's installation of a "sluice" system that pumped mud out of the Avon and its associated waterways, Bristol's port was too shallow for the larger ships that Brunel himself had contributed to promoting.

A few days before I went to Bristol, I was going through Wikipedia entries on on 19th-Century steam ships, partly because of my concern regarding the U.S.S. Olympia, which is in danger of scrapping. One of the preserved steamships that I read about was the S.S. Great Britain, which I had presumed was long scrapped. To my surprise, I read the story of its rescue and preservation in the 1970's. I had forgotten it was sent to Britain, and when I saw it in the harbor I just assumed it was an old whaling ship or even a U.S. Navy ship (due to the black paint with the white stripe down the side). My taxi driver noticed me looking at it, and brought it up. He asked if I knew what ship it was. I mentioned that I had been reading about old ships, and that I knew it couldn't be the Great Britain. He corrected me that it really was, so I went to see it the next day. I took a large number of photos of it, and the ones I'm posting to iPernity are only a small portion of them. This is the stern, of course. The dry dock that it's displayed in has been permanently pumped out, and wavy glass resembling water has been installed around the waterline, with a little bit of water pumped over it. Visitors are allowed under the glass to see the hull below the waterline.

Here's a look down through the glass. The red thing you see is the rudder.

Here's a shot further back. The way it's displayed is reasonably convincing from a distance, in that it looks like it's still in the water.

Unfortunately, having been abandoned from the 1930's to the 1970's, and having been run into the ground (literally) before that, the S.S. Great Britain is in such bad condition that preservationists have given up hope of relaunching it. The hull is riddled with rust holes, in spite of repainting, dehumidifiers in the drydock, and so on. I noted that the Great Britain's condition was much worse than the Olympia's, and by a wide margin. I think this is something the Olympia's custodians should bear in mind, that the Great Britain was preserved in spite of its condition.

This is the propellor. However, this one's a replica of the original, which was not used for very long. The reason it was replaced was that it had too much pull for the alloys of the time, and tended to damage itself. The engine was also not quite powerful enough for it. The rudder is also a replacement, as the original is in extremely bad condition.