By Lynda Myer
Through a series of talks and viewings, the Brunel Museum in London is opening to the public its collection of watercolors, sketches and early designs of the Thames Tunnel.
Also on December 8 at 10.30am, the London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell, London EC1, will host the next event.
Including over than 30 individual drawings by the Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and their draughtsmen and engineers, ranging from small pen-and-ink sketches of the tunneling machinery to enormous lithograph prints of the entire tunnel, this collection acquired by the Brunel Museum in 2017.
Guides will be on hand to explain the collection’s unique history and how the Thames Tunnel came to be known as the eighth wonder of the world.
As the world’s oldest underwater tunnel, the structure opened to the public in 1843, whereas originally for pedestrians, it was later converted into a railway line and today it forms part of the London Overground line.
Click here and book tickets.
An evening with Tim Bryan, author of Iron, Stone and Steam: Brunel’s Railway Empire, is due to be hold by the museum on December 7.
In the book, Bryan, director of the Brunel Institute at the SS Great Britain, chronicles how, in almost 30 years, Isambard Kingdom Brunel created a rail network covering much of the south and west of England, the Midlands and Wales. The network included masterpieces like Paddington Station and the Royal Albert Bridge and still carries millions of travellers today. The book also describes how Brunel’s successes were matched by “monumental failures” – the ill-fated atmospheric system used on the South Devon Railway, and the far-reaching implications of the broad gauge for his railways, which ultimately cost millions of pounds when abolished.
The talk, at the museum in Rotherhithe, London SE16, will start at 7pm. The tickets are accessible here.
