As some of you may know, I am a bit of a Victorian history geek. So when Jon and I found ourselves in Bristol almost by accident, it was too good an occasion for an immersive experience to miss.
Now, some people like Disneyland. I, for one, feel a bit uneasy in the Disney universe (though I like amusement parks, just not those that revolve around a certain mouse) so the irony of the metaphor I’m going to use is definitely not lost on me, but there’s no other way to say it: Brunel’s SS Great Britain is very much to history buffs what Disneyland is to cartoon fanatics.
I was very excited when I saw the reconstitution of the 19th-century dockyards at the end of the promenade along the River Avon. It was like peeping through a time portal, and the decision to visit the whole exhibition was made in the blink of an eye.
The tickets may seem a bit pricey at first (£17/per adult), BUT they will grant you free unlimited return visits for a year, so I’d say it is a pretty sweet deal (see the “Details” section for more information about tickets and prices). And honestly, even if you’re used to culture being almost always free in the U.K., there aren’t many attractions that compare to Brunel’s SS Great Britain.
Before I get started on the tour itself, I probably should give you some background information on Brunel and the ship, in case you’re not completely familiar with their history.
Nineteenth-Century Genius
Born on the 9th of April 1806 in Portsmouth, Isambard Kingdom Brunel is considered “one of the 19th-century engineering giants” (on top of receiving the annual prize for Most Interesting Name for 213 years in a row). He was one of the men who made the 19th century. As a mechanical and civil engineer, he truly revolutionised not only public transport but also modern engineering. His achievements include, but are not limited to: the Great Western Railway, the Thames Tunnel, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Royal Albert Bridge, and the Maidenhead Railway Bridge, all of which were extraordinary inventions that shaped both the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution.
He also invented the practice of building hospitals from prefabricated modules, which is still in use nowadays, and of course, built ships, because why not? And if you are to build ships, then you might as well build the first-ever propeller-driven transatlantic steamship. I think it is difficult for us to imagine how much of an engineering miracle it must have been to cross the Atlantic aboard a propeller steamship, but it was no small feat.
Full Steam Ahead
Up until Brunel, steamships generally used paddle wheels for propulsion, like The British Queen you can see on this engraving:
Sidewheelers (like The British Queen and the riverboats mentioned in Mark Twain’s books, for example) basically use steam to propel the paddles, effectively converting the rotary motion of a shaft into the linear motion of a fluid. In other words, the paddles rotate on their axis and push the ship forward. Though paddle wheels were a fantastic invention at the time, they also came with a few disadvantages, namely:
- Limited manoeuvrability. Imagine the turning radius of such a thing, even when you’re able to disengage the paddles independently. Plus, if you were to actually do that and for some reason, your passengers shifted sides at the same moment, when approaching the docks to disembark, for example, then the imbalance would make your ship capsize. And God knows you cannot trust tourists to remain seated when instructed to.
- They demanded lots of charcoal to operate, up to the point that transatlantic crossings required the use of both sails and steam engines, which defeated the purpose of having a mechanised ship.
- The paddle wheels regularly rise above the water, which causes a loss of power efficiency.
And if your idea was to make it cost-effective to cross an ocean, those were serious problems that you needed to address — especially the bit where you could get all your passengers killed (somewhere on the third floor of a grey building in Islington, the risk management junior associate of a big insurance company just felt a chill running down his spine).
Enter Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was no stranger to naval architecture when he started on the SS Great Britain project. In 1838, he had seen his Great Western launch on her maiden voyage from Bristol to New York, which she completed in just 15 days. At 236 feet (72 metres) long, she was the largest steamship ever built. By the time she was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in 1847, she had successfully completed over 60 trans-Atlantic crossings. But the SS Great Britain was going to be something else entirely.
To start with, Brunel’s second ship would be gigantic. With its 322 feet (98 metres) long, she would be able to welcome 360 passengers and 1,200 tonnes of cargo. I don’t know if you realise how big that is, but if you decided to balance the ship on her bow and make her stand vertically, she would be the same height as the Statue of Liberty (and just ten feet shorter than Big Ben). It is mighty big; just add 23 feet (7 metres) and you’ve got yourself a football pitch!
Not only was the SS Great Britain to be the biggest ship ever built, she also was to be, as I said earlier, the first steamship to be equipped with a propeller instead of paddles, which would solve all of the aforementioned problems and came with a few extra advantages (propellers take up less room, so more cargo could be carried and the machinery could be kept in the lower hull, hence a lower centre of gravity). And her hull was to be made of iron.
With wood getting more expensive and iron getting cheaper, it made sense to build ships with the latter. Yet, Brunel’s initial plan was for the SS Great Britain’s hull to be made of wood. He only changed his mind after sending two associates of his on a return voyage to Antwerp on the Rainbow (an iron-hulled ship). Upon coming back to Bristol, the two men were convinced of the advantages of building ships out of iron, and so was Brunel.
On top of being immune to dry rot and woodworm, iron boats are also lighter in weight and much less bulky, which gave the engineer some leeway to unleash his creativity, and by the time he was done with the final designs, the SS Great Britain’s prospective displacement was 3,674 tons load draught. Once built, she was to be the largest ship ever to cruise the oceans.
Dry Dock
In order to build such a gigantic ship, you need a gigantic dry dock. Fortunately, the Great Western Steamship Company (created by Isambard Brunel, his friend Thomas Guppy and a bunch of Bristol investors) had used a dry dock in Bristol to build the SS Great Western, and it could be adapted to fit the requirements of the SS Great Britain. Now, if you’ve never seen a dry dock, it is basically a basin that can be flooded to let a vessel float in, then drained to allow work on said vessel. Again, not a small thing.
The construction of the SS Great Britain was completed in 1843. The float-out was supposed to take place on the 19th of July, and while Prince Albert was indeed there and the ship was duly christened by a Mrs Clarissa Miles (who threw the Champagne bottle ten feet short of its target), the SS Great Britain didn’t leave Bristol. The river was too narrow for the giant and the authorities hadn’t carried out the modifications they had promised. Long story short, she finally started her maiden voyage on the 26th of July 1845, having cost a grand total of £117,000 (about £8.000.000 in today’s value and about half the cost of the Great Exhibition that took place in 1851).
Australia and the Falklands
After seven years of trans-Atlantic journeys, the SS Great Britain was sold to Gibbs, Bright & Co., who had an extra upper deck built in order to transport more passengers (she was then able to carry up to 700 people, not counting the crew). For financial reasons, she was used primarily as a sailing boat, with the engine only being used in case the wind was blowing from the wrong direction, or not blowing enough. But above all, she was to be used for a completely different purpose: she would transport migrants and gold seekers to Australia (following the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851), which she did until 1882.
She was then converted again, this time to transport cargo, and more specifically coal and wheat, between England and the West Coast of America. Unfortunately, in 1886, she was badly damaged by a storm while she was cruising off Cape Horn, and her captain made the decision to seek refuge in the Falklands, where she was stranded. Upon examination, her owners concluded that she was beyond repair, and she was abandoned 3.5 miles from Port Stanley. The Falkland Islands Company used her as a storage hulk, and some iron from her hull was scavenged to repair HMS Exeter during WWII.
Voyage 47
It could have ended there, with what had once been the most magnificent ship ever built slowly decaying on the horizon of the Falklands, far from home, if it hadn’t been for the SS Great Britain Project. Chaired by Richard Goold-Adams and counting members such as Sir Jack Hayward and Sir Paul Getty, the foundation came up with the arguably bonkers plan of bringing the ship back to England.
On the 13th of April 1970, the remains of the SS Great Britain were lifted thanks to a submersible pontoon and transported to Port Stanley, where she was prepared for her last trans-Atlantic voyage, called Voyage 47, as she had sunk during her 47th journey. She arrived at Barry Docks (Wales) on the 22nd of June. Tugs then towed her, still on her pontoon, to Avonmouth Docks. The pontoon could not go any further, as it was wider than the river, so it was taken off as spectators held their breath. After 84 years of decay, she was floating on her own.
For two more weeks, she had to wait in a basin for the tide to be high enough for her to float to her birthplace, the Great Western Dockyard. It was a long journey, but finally, 125 years after leaving Bristol for the first time, the SS Great Britain was home.
The visit
After purchasing your tickets from the ticket office that doubles as a souvenir shop, go through the main door and start your tour of the exhibition. I was very impressed by the attention that had been paid to details in the reconstruction of 19th-century docks.
I assume that you should start with the indoors exhibition, but I couldn’t resist first taking a stroll around the dockyard because come on! How often are you going to travel to the Victorian era?
The exhibition in itself is very interesting. It shows the history of the SS Great Britain, from the blueprints to Voyage 47, as well as all the efforts that have been put into salvaging, rebuilding and conserving the ship since 1970. You can also watch this rather formidable BBC documentary on the perilous rescue mission, from the Falklands to Bristol.
The foundation has done an outstanding job of making the displays interactive and accessible to children without being boring for the grownups. For example, you can stamp your ticket as you would with a passport, visit the exhibition in character thanks to the passengers’ details that are provided or dress up in Victorian clothing. There really is something for everyone.
But of course, the pièce de résistance is the visit of the ship herself.
It’s a bit dry, innit?
In order to prevent the hull from rusting, the 19th-century dry dock has been topped with glass panels that figure a waterline, as if the SS Great Britain was about to sail. To really take in the size of the ship, you’ll need to go through that waterline, thanks to a staircase that would not be out of place in a Jules Verne novel (also accessible to wheelchairs). I was truly amazed at the magnitude of both the vessel and the engineering required to keep it in an almost pristine state.
Roughly 30 seconds in, you’ll probably notice how warm it is down there. In fact, the air is as dry as it is in Arizona in the summer. There’s a very good reason for this. With the ship being so vulnerable to corrosion, two giant dehumidification plants ensure that the atmospheric humidity in the dry dock is maintained at 20% at all times. So if like me, you always complain that it is too cold, you’ll find yourself very happy below the waterline.
Now, if you’ve always dreamt of travelling through time in order to spend an afternoon in the Victorian Era, you’re in for a treat.
Travelling in style
The first landing will take you to the captain’s cabin and the promenade deck, as well as to the first-class cabins. Here and there, wax figures in Victorian clothing are caught mid-sentence or attending to their daily business, which is a nice addition that really makes it possible to imagine what life was like onboard. Here, the captain and (I assume) his second, discussing very important matters, like the course to take to avoid having everyone killed in a tragic collision with an iceberg or how to manage the chef’s tantrum over the fact that someone has forgotten to order fresh parsley and now the mushroom soup is just not going to be the same without it and it’s definitely not his fault, by Jove. I mean, I guess.
Now you’ll probably note that the Victorians had a definition of “first-class” that is slightly different from ours (their cabins were rather small), but all things considered, the SS Great Britain displayed all the luxury available at the time, and I am not quite sure I would mind travelling the way they did.
However, what I am always really interested in is how people ate, first because I really like eating, and second because foodways truly show how people lived.
Pudding & Mock Turtle Soup
In that respect, the visit to the kitchen is very instructive in that it has all you would expect and more. In the pantry you can see, fresh meat and fish and plenty of preserves of all sorts, as well as tin cans of all you need to prepare a high-end banquet. The chef seems to have just stepped out of the kitchen, and the dishes are ready to be taken to the dining room.
I felt like a child in a sweetshop.
Speaking of which, here’s the dining room, where I was thoroughly impressed with the details, including the dirty plates:
Hygiene on board
Obviously, having so many people on board for such a long time (about fifteen days at sea, sometimes more) meant that the SS Great Britain had to be equipped with bathrooms. On the first deck, you can see an example of a restroom, a washroom, as well as washbasins in some of the cabins.
The steerage
During your tour of the SS Great Britain, you’ll also be given a chance to discover what it was like to travel in second class in the 19th century. Apparently, the emphasis was put on keeping the less wealthy from creating trouble by putting up discipline notices and ads for religious services. Whether that worked, I have no idea, but the wax figures don’t seem all too happy with that, especially the two ladies caught in the middle of a fight at the end of a gangway.
I haven’t mentioned it until now, but a serious bonus to this exhibition is the plethora of sound effects that have been used in order to recreate an authentic Victorian Era atmosphere. Throughout your visit, you will hear conversations and ambience noises, such as the creaking of the hull, the clanging of cutlery, and some music, which really give life to the reconstitutions and make it possible for the experience to be truly immersive.
Cargo
The last stop on the tour is the ship’s hold, where the cargo was stored during the journeys. On top of the passenger’s trunks, you can see all sorts of goods that were to be sold in America (such as watches and brandy) and even horses!
Farewell
I’m fairly sure you’ve understood it by now: I really enjoyed seeing the SS Great Britain. If you’ve always dreamed of spending a day in the 19th century, if you’re passionate about ships, if you are a civil engineering enthusiast, or if you simply want to spend a nice day out, Brunel’s SS Great Britain definitely is worth the visit.
Details
- Location: Great Western Dockyard, Gas Ferry Rd, Bristol BS1 6TY, UK.
- Opening times: Open every day, except the 24th and 25th of December and the second Monday of January. 10 am-4.30 pm (November-March) & 10 am-6 pm (March-November).
- Entrance fees: £17/Adult, £15/Student/Senior, £10/Child (5-16 years old), Free for the children under 4 and anyone named Isambard.
- Book online (5% discount).
- Tip: There’s no need to take a long walk to cross the river on Prince Street Bridge as a cross-harbour ferry operates between Brunel’s SS Great Britain and Hanover Quay (in season) for £1/person.
