Bristol

As some of you may know we spent a couple of nights moored in Bristol Harbour, unfortunately the weather was not on our side with strong winds and rain which somewhat curtailed our cruise around the harbour.

We did however spend a bit of time looking round Brunel's SS Great Britain. She now sits in the dry dock where she was originally built where she is being conserved not restored. One of the clever things the conservers have done is to cover the dry-dock in glass at the ships waterline completely seal it to the hull and then flood it on top with just a few inches of water so it looks as if the ship is floating.

Below the water line the dry-dock is kept at a constant 40% humidity as this is the best atmospheric condition to prevent further corrosion of the hull which is now very bad in places. This is achieved by having a large dehumidifier in the dry-dock which blows warm, dry air under the hull via large  metal pipes.

When you visit the boat you start off after crossing the dockyard by going through an air lock and down stairs to the floor of the dry-dock, where you can wander all round the bottom of the hull. The SS Great Britain was changed quite a bit over her lifetime but the museum has tried as far as possible to show the ship as she was when first launched. This has meant building and fitting a new propeller and rudder, as one of the modifications made to her was to fit a retractable propeller that could be drawn up unto the hull for when she was sailing to reduce drag. This meant also replacing the rudder, Brunel had designed a balanced rudder which reducer the amount of force required to make the boat turn.

The boat was also re-rigged to back how she was originally, as later in her life her steam engine was removed completely freeing up space for cargo and she relied 100% of sails for motive power so her rigging was changed. 

There is another giant dehumidifier inside the boat to maintain the 40% inside the boat, Cabins have been refurnished as have the main dining area. This really was First Class travel for the rich. There was also steerage class which was a completely different kettle of fish.

 

In the rigging yard outside is one of her spars, this is not timber but also made or iron.

  

One of the good things about this visit was that your tickets are valid for 12 months so you are free to come and visit as often as you like in the year. I think you could easily spend a full day there, but it would be a lot to take in in one go, but allow at least half a day for a visit.

We also visited the M Shed which is a large museum housed in one of the dock warehouses, this was free entry and covered two floors with some interesting exhibits.

If you have children with you, we had the grandson and friend for one day then a day in “at Bristol” is the answer. They will just love doing all the activities in there, from a demonstration of the listening machines that were erected on the south coast during the war to listen for enemy planes to building with giant Lego.

Eating out and you really are spoilt for choice we had one very good and reasonably expensive meal in the Bristol Hotel who’s WiFi I was able to receive on the boat and another at Bristol Beer Emporium where the dining room is actually in the cellar which is all brick, this makes it quite noisy when there are a lot of people in there.

Walking around the town there are some interesting old streets, one of these is Christmas Steps

The detailing on the building was very good both the brickwork and the stone carvings 

At the top of the steps there are a row of Alms Houses which end on to Christmas Steps. 

We did wander around other parts of the town including visiting Bristol Cathedral which is quite  grand building and very welcoming with someone by the door to greet you and give out a leaflet about the different parts of the building.

For some reason Bristol decided it wanted a floating garden, I am not sure why as it has lots of space for conventional ones, but they found an old concrete grain barge and put a load of soil on it before planting native flowers on it and mooring it well up the harbour away from the normal footfall. I think it is only accessible by boat  I don’t know if its been quietly forgotten about as it doesn’t look anything like the pictures on the web site show for last April.