Brunel Museum
Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first and last projects are on the River Thames. The Thames Tunnel with his father Sir Marc Brunel is now an International Landmark Site and the oldest section of tunnel in the London Underground. The Great Eastern Steamship, his monster ship, was launched just down the river and is the prototype for the ocean liner of today. The Museum is a Scheduled Ancient Monument in award winning riverside gardens.
Venue Type:
Museum, Industrial heritage site
Additional info
The licensed riverside cafe/bar serves tea/coffee and home made cakes everyday and garden cocktails on Saturdays.
An exhibition in the restored Engine House tells the story of the men who worked in the dark, dodging flames and showered with raw sewage every day. Watercolours, peep-shows, engravings, and models, explain this epic feat of engineering. There is an extraordinary collection of souvenirs sold underneath the Thames over 160 years ago in the world's first underwater shopping precinct.
Collection details
Architecture, Industry, Land Transport
Educational Programmes
http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/education.aspx
Half day and full day educational visits are available, and can cover cross-curricular areas through different themes including The Banquet in the Tunnel, Meet Brunel Local History/Literacy, Brunel and the Local Area, The Underwater Shopping Arcade, The Thames Tunnel Fancy Fair, Science: Forces, Bridge Building Workshop and History, and
Citizenship and Gifted and Talented Arts Projects.
How to obtain
Email the Education department at education@brunel-museum.org.uk or call 020 7231 3840 for more information and to make a booking.
Activities Pack Files
Downloadable sheets of suggested activities for students: debates, writing and art activities based on the Tunnel's dangers and disasters, its uses, its engineering, as a tourist attraction, the men who built it, the Thames, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Marc Brunel.
How to obtain
Email the Education department at education@brunel-museum.org.uk or call 020 7231 3840 for more information.
Build a Bridge Templates
Three templates available as free downloads. Print out on cardboard, cut the pieces out and assemble them to build your own suspension bridge.
How to obtain
Email the Education department at education@brunel-museum.org.uk or call 020 7231 3840 for more information.
Thames Tunnel Virtual Tour
http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/tunnel_virtual_tour.aspx
The virtual tour shows the Thames Tunnel at almost the mid-point of the river. As the image rotates you can see the cross passageways linking the two tunnels. When the Tunnel opened in 1843 there were shops in each of the sixty arches. Before the trains came in 1869 this was the world's first underwater shopping arcade.
When refurbishing in the 1990s, London Underground preserved the Tunnel's original profile with arches and Doric capitals. Brunel had the walls rendered, but the first four arches on the southern side have been left in their original state with brickwork exposed.
Brunel Museum
Brunel Engine House
Railway Avenue
London
Greater London
SE16 4LF
England
Website
Director
robert.hulse@brunel-museum.org.uk
Education
education@brunel-museum.org.uk
Telephone
0207 231 3840
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