Clifton Suspension Bridge (1864): Brunel's Bridge Over the Avon

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is an iron suspension bridge that crosses the deep Avon Gorge between Clifton in Bristol and Leigh Woods on the Somerset side. Designed by the young Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1831, it was abandoned unfinished and only completed after his death, opening on 8 December 1864. Today it is the best-known symbol of Bristol and one of the most admired works of Victorian engineering.

Background: a bridge across the gorge

The idea of bridging the Avon Gorge was old. In 1753 a Bristol wine merchant, William Vick, left £1,000 in his will to be invested until it reached £10,000, when it was to pay for a stone bridge from Clifton Down to the Somerset side. By the 1820s the fund had grown, but a stone bridge of that size was impractical, and the trustees turned to the new technology of the suspension bridge.

In 1829 a design competition was held. The judge, the eminent engineer Thomas Telford, rejected every entry, including four from the 23-year-old Brunel, arguing that a span of more than about 600 feet was unsafe. Telford then offered his own design, with tall Gothic towers rising from the floor of the gorge, but it was widely criticised as costly and clumsy.

Brunel’s design

A second competition followed in 1831. After discussion with the judges, Brunel’s design was chosen. It proposed a single span of about 700 feet between towers built on the cliff tops, with the towers decorated in the then-fashionable Egyptian style, including sphinxes. It was Brunel’s first major commission and laid the foundation of his career, which later included the Great Western Railway and the steamship Great Britain.

A ceremony to start work was held on 21 June 1831. Within months, however, the Bristol riots of October 1831, triggered by the defeat of parliamentary reform, shook confidence in the city, and work was suspended.

Decades of delay

Building resumed in 1836, when the foundation stone of the Leigh Woods abutment was laid on 27 August. The two massive towers rose over the next years, and an iron bar was stretched across the gorge to carry materials and workers in a basket.

Money ran out again. By 1843 the towers stood complete but there was no deck, and the trustees had spent the available funds. In the early 1850s the ironwork prepared for the bridge, including the chains, was sold and later used on Brunel’s Royal Albert Bridge across the Tamar at Saltash. For two decades the empty towers stood on either side of the gorge as a monument to an unfinished dream.

Completion as a memorial

Brunel died on 15 September 1859, aged 53. Members of the Institution of Civil Engineers felt the bridge should be finished as a tribute to him, and a new Clifton Suspension Bridge Company was formed to raise the money. By good fortune, Brunel’s Hungerford suspension footbridge in London was being demolished in 1860 to make way for a railway bridge, and its chains were bought for Clifton.

The engineers William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw revised the design. They used three chains on each side instead of Brunel’s two, built a stiffer and stronger deck, and set aside the costly Egyptian decoration, leaving the towers in rough stone. Before opening, the bridge was tested with a load of around 500 tons of stone spread across the deck.

The bridge opened on 8 December 1864 amid large crowds and celebrations in Bristol.

By the numbers

Legacy

The Clifton Suspension Bridge has carried road traffic for more than 150 years, far beyond anything its builders imagined. It is still run by a charitable trust funded by tolls, and it is a Grade I listed structure. Its outline, high above the river and framed by woods, appears on countless images of Bristol.

The bridge belongs to a remarkable age of British engineering that began with the Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale and included Marc and Isambard Brunel’s Thames Tunnel. Larger suspension bridges soon followed abroad, notably the Brooklyn Bridge of 1883, which used steel wire cables rather than iron chains.

Although it is popularly called Brunel’s bridge, the finished structure reflects the work of several engineers. It is fairest to describe it as Brunel’s concept, completed and strengthened by his colleagues in his memory.

Timeline

• 1753: William Vick leaves £1,000 towards a bridge over the Avon Gorge.
• 1829: First design competition; Thomas Telford rejects all entries.
• 1831, 21 June: Ceremony marks the start of work on Brunel’s design.
• 1831, October: Bristol riots; work is suspended.
• 1836, 27 August: Foundation stone of the Leigh Woods abutment is laid.
• 1843: Funds run out with the towers complete but no deck.
• 1859, 15 September: Brunel dies in London.
• 1864, 8 December: The completed bridge opens to the public.

Why it matters

The Clifton Suspension Bridge launched Brunel’s career and became a lasting tribute to him. Its long, troubled history shows how Victorian engineering ambition often outran its funding, and how engineers honoured one of their greatest colleagues by finishing his first great design.