John Burke's Beautiful England
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Tuesday 28 May 1998

Now, in case you have just popped onto this site instead of having read the previous pages (shame on you - have a look later!) let me bring you up to date.

Fran and I are on holiday and have spent a few days in Wiltshire looking at stone circles, tombs and Roman soldiers and have then moved north to Bath. The city, I mean, the people in Wiltshire had bathrooms so it wasn't for reasons of limited cleanliness that we came north.
We had spent this Tuesday morning in the Roman baths and now we have motored up to Bristol for the afternoon prior to heading towards the Cotswolds for the rest of our holiday.

We had looked around Brunel's steam ship S.S. Great Britain soon after it opened to visitors in Bristol after being salvaged and brought back from the Falkland Isles where it had been rotting to bits for a considerable number of years.

The design of black squares by the way was deliberate to fool any pirates that the ship had a row of gun ports.
The last time I saw this ship was 1977 and it was still a hulk, with more holes than was good for any lump of iron designed to float on water. The 6-bladed propellor had just been fitted and I can't remember seeing much of the inside of the ship at all.

Seen right is the engine compartment. A replica of the engine is being built. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer, had fitted an engine sideways into his ship to drive a propellor rather than side paddle wheels. It was the first ocean-going propellor-driven iron ship.
The dining room has been restored to a state where it can be booked for parties or functions. It looked rather splendid, but - surely those chairs are not quite of the correct period?
A couple of the incredibly tiny passenger cabins have been restored to give an idea of the cramped space that even first class passengers endured.
Looking towards the pointy bit (right). We made our way forrard - Good Lord, how easily one slips into the seafaring tongue - and found the ship's bell.

A kind gent offered to take our photograph and I found a coin to ding the inside of the bell as it had no clapper - yes, that's right - it was clapped out...
Looking towards the blunt end, I got a stern look...

When you consider that this was the largest ship of its time, it still seems small compared with the liners of today.
   
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