Difficult as it may currently be to imagine happily joining a crowd, that is what I am asking you to envision: On Saturday 25th March 1843, the Thames Tunnel finally opened, eighteen years after the start of the project. Visitors eagerly arrived in Rotherhithe on foot, coach, horseback or by boat. A printing press had […]

We know that many of our visitors are Brunel enthusiasts and have collected or inherited various wonderful items. This gem is from the collection of volunteer Gill Howard. What treasures of Brunel memorabilia have you collected? Brunel’s Own Copy of An Explanation of the Works of the Tunnel Under the Thames from Rotherhithe to Wapping […]

The Brunel Museum is in the Engine House on the site where Marc Brunel’s world famous 1843 Thames Tunnel was created.  Arising from COVID-19 and the ensuing government guidance, the Museum’s doors have had to close and the impact of the loss of income is significant  – and will be for many months to come. […]

To construct the Thames Tunnel, Marc Brunel built the first ever “travelling shield”. Made of iron and weighing more than seven tons, it contained 36 adjacent cells all of which contained a miner working independently. The design for the shield was inspired by Marc’s observation of the shipworm “teredo navalis”, which excretes digested wood to […]

Would you believe that our hero Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a pioneer of prefabrication?

Doesn’t sound Victorian-style but in times of national crisis some extraordinary things can be achieved. We have recently been amazed by the speed of the herculean task of turning conference centres such as Excel into fully functioning hospitals for high-risk patients.  In 1855 Isambard Kingdom Brunel was set a similarly daunting task. To design and create a state of the art modular hospital that could be produced in the UK and then transported and erected on an unknown site in a war zone thousands of miles away. He achieved the entire project in 5 months, here is the story:-

Thirty-six miners stood in individual cells inside the Tunnelling Shield. They faced a wall of wooden planks held in place by iron rods and butted up against the soil. Each miner would remove one plank at a time and dig away the soil to a depth of four inches. Then, replacing that plank he would […]

IKB By Gill Howard (Volunteer) This is my favourite photograph of IKB because without his hat and his usual working clothes, he appears more accessible and human. It makes me realise that as well as being an incredible engineer, architect, pioneer, hugely brave and driven individual, he was a father, a friend and a husband.  […]