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 …
Decorating our fish and learning about the Thames tunnel
Week 2, day 4: Today we began by making invitations for our parents for tomorrow’s Fancy Fair. Ten we started making our paper mache fish colourful by covering them in small pieces of tissue paper to make scales. With eyes, fins and a tail stuck on, our fish are complete! We were then invited for …
Poetry and origami: playscheme ’18
Day 3, week 2: Today we all made paper origami boats. We decorated our paper before folding them into the right shape. Then we made an acrostic poem all together before making our own ones, and decorating them. We then took a trip to the river to do some sketching of what we saw. After …
Director’s Diary: The Hon Sir William McAlpine Bt
In Memoriam Sunday 13th Fawley Hill Museum. Sir William McAlpine was one of the first enthusiastic patrons of The Brunel Museum, always ready to fill the gap. A keen Brunel collector, he was the first to loan objects to the museum, which came from his own very extensive collection. He lobbied other organisations to follow suit, and …
Director’s Diary: A View of the Bridge
We are now offering heritage boat trips every day of the week, and our popular riverside walk from Bermondsey tube three times a week. This is the finest view of Henry Marc Brunel’s Tower Bridge… Sunday 6th May 10.40 heritage boat trip from Embankment tube offered in partnership with London Walks 10.40 riverside walk from …