Tucked away between Rotherhithe tube station and the Thames riverbank, you’ll discover the Brunel Museum.
Sited in the engine house next to the original construction shaft, the Brunel Museum looks at how the lives of father and son were entwined with a remarkable engineering achievement – the Thames Tunnel, the first to be constructed under the river. Through a series of information panels, scale models and contemporary paintings and drawings, visitors will learn about the triumphs and failures that marked its eighteen year construction, from 1825 to 1843.
Two years ago I attended a lecture at the London Transport Museum by the museum’s director Robert Hulse – this blogpost sets out much of the Thames Tunnel’s history, although as it turned out I learned quite a bit more when I actually went over to the Brunel Museum itself because I got to see the construction shaft first hand!
Regular tours of the shaft accompany the opening of the museum at set times during the week and at weekends. Accessed through a small door and a short tunnel that you have to stoop to get through, once you get inside the scale of the Brunel’s achievement becomes clear as you enter a thirty-five foot wide circular chamber that extends down some twenty feet. Up until a few years ago this space was open to the railway lines below (which are now part of the Overground network – the shaft sits between Rotherhithe and Wapping stations) but there’s now a concrete floor where we sat while the trains rumbled away below our feet.
What’s even more remarkable about the Thames Tunnel is that if the project hadn’t been dogged by delays and funding problems there would have been matching shafts a little further back from the river over twice the diameter of the one that we visited – large enough for horses and carts to be led down a gentle incline and on under the river, which was the tunnel’s initial purpose.
Given that the tunnel is complete and sees use every single day the question that you must be asking is where the construction shaft to the north of the river is located. Well, if you’ve ever visited Wapping you’ve probably been inside it, as it was repurposed to serve as Wapping station in 1884 (until I edited it just now the Wikipedia page on the Thames Tunnel wrongly stated that Rotherhithe station uses the southern construction shaft, which of course it doesn’t – a timely warning to be careful about what you read on Wikipedia!).
If you ever find yourself in this part of town I can highly recommend a visit to the Brunel Museum, but I would suggest visiting on a day when you can also see the shaft. If you’re interested in learning about special openings and other events that are going on at the museum, check out their very active Twitter feed and Facebook page.
