Director’s Diary: Difference Engines and Steam Engines
Brunel built steam engines, so how appropriate he is named Isambard, meaning ‘man of iron’. Even more appropriate, his friend Babbage – troublesome neighbour and fractious supporter – is remembered for a computer which he called a ‘Difference Engine’. Brunel is known for his eccentric detractors like Dionysus Lardner, but his friends and supporters were …
Director’s Diary: Rain Stops Train Again!
Storms in the UK are making some journeys difficult or impossible. Not much comfort, but not a new problem and not just a domestic problem. Here is the Italian railway along the coast to La Spezia, linking Cinque Terra with Genova. The views are spectacular, but so are the seas! This has all the drama …
Director’s Diary: A Very Long Tunnel
On holiday in Italy, but thinking of Brunel. The London tube holds no fears for me, but tunnels under the Alps are just a bit too long for complete peace of mind. This was a sensation entirely familiar to people travelling through Brunel’s tunnels: by foot under the Thames, or by Great Western Railway under …
Hats off to Sir Marc Brunel!
At the Brunel Museum we have been working on something special! To announce our new collection of Thames Tunnel watercolours, we have commissioned some films. This gif is a taster. It is March 1843 and at the opening of the Thames Tunnel Marc Brunel is centre stage. Hats off! All five films are coming …
PRESS RELEASE! The Brunel Museum secures National Lottery support
Tuesday 9th July 2019 The Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe has received initial support* from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for ‘The Brunel Museum Reinvented’ project, it was announced today. Made possible by National Lottery players, the project will transform the Museum, putting one of the most significant feats of engineering in London’s history into …
Happy 250th Birthday Sir Marc Brunel!
Marc Brunel, the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel was one of the most innovative engineers of his day. He was born on April 25th 1769 Hacqueville, France. He joined the French Navy but had to flee France because of his outspoken royalist views. He emigrated to America where he became Chief Engineer of the port …
Director’s Diary: The Gimlet Hole
We are a small museum with a big story, and we are preparing grant applications! This is an important site – an International Landmark Site – and the next crucial development will provide a new gallery for our recently acquired collection of Brunel drawings. We also need to improve facilities for our growing visitor numbers. …
Director’s Diary: Illuminate Rotherhithe! and Illuminate Rotherhithe
In 2020 the Mayflower sailed from Rotherhithe on an historic voyage. For some on board it was a mission, a mission to illuminate, the word often used by their preacher and teacher William Bradford, first Governor of Massachusetts. Later Joseph Conrad famously wrote about the lights springing up along the shore. And today, illuminate is also the …
Director’s Diary: Sophia Brunel does the engineering
With the onset of warmer weather the effect of the gas in the tunnel began to be felt more acutely. There is a greater number of disabled men than at any time before. During the night the gas burned fiercely and with a roaring like distant thunder. Heywood died of typhus and Page is evidently sinking very …
Director’s Diary: The most rhymed about, danced about, sung about and painted about construction site in the world
The amazing Totally Thames Festival has ended for another year, and so have summer evenings in the roof top garden with Midnight Apothecary. But the entertainment continues: this week A Piano in the Amazon, Choral Favourites from Collegium Musicum, and in the chilly weather cocktails and Cabaret Down the Shaft with Tricity Vogue. Abigail Collins dances Swan Lake …