The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was produced and published by the City of Bristol Printing and Stationery Department, 9, Willway Street, Bristol. The photography was by E. Wagner.
The following is printed on the divided back of the card:
'Brunel's Suspension Bridge
spanning the River Avon, the
Observatory, Clifton Village
and the S.S. Great Britain are
all easily discernible in this
aerial view of Bristol."
The Clifton Suspension Bridge
The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Avon Gorge and the River Avon, linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. Since opening in 1864, it has been a toll bridge, the income from which provides funds for its maintenance.
The bridge carries four million vehicles per year, and is a Grade I Listed building.
The bridge was built to a design by William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw, based on an earlier design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
The idea of building a bridge across the Avon Gorge originated in 1753. Original plans were for a stone bridge, and later iterations were for a wrought iron structure.
In 1831, an attempt to build Brunel's design was halted by the Bristol riots, and the revised version of his designs was built after his death and completed in 1864.
Although similar in size, the bridge towers are not identical in design, the Clifton tower having side cut-outs, the Leigh tower more pointed arches atop a 110-foot (34 m) red sandstone-clad abutment.
Roller-mounted "saddles" at the top of each tower allow movement of the three independent wrought iron chains on each side when loads pass over the bridge. The bridge deck is suspended by 162 vertical wrought-iron rods in 81 matching pairs.
-- History of the Clifton Suspension Bridge
The first stone bridge, Bristol Bridge, was built in the 13th. century. It had houses with shopfronts built on it to pay for its maintenance. A 17th.-century illustration shows that these bridge houses were five storeys high, including the attic rooms, and that they overhung the river much as Tudor houses would overhang the street.
In the 1760's a bill to replace the bridge was carried through parliament by the Bristol MP Sir Jarrit Smyth. By the early 18th. century, increase in traffic and the encroachment of shops on the roadway had made the bridge fatally dangerous for many pedestrians.
Other crossings were considered, but were restricted by Admiralty rules that stipulated that any bridge had to be at least 100 feet (30 m) above the water to allow the passage of tall-masted warships to Bristol Harbour. To achieve this, any bridge constructed between Bristol Bridge and Avon Gorge, from Hotwells to Ashton Gate, would require massive embankments and viaducts. The alternative was to build across the narrowest point of the Avon Gorge, well above the height required for shipping.
Brunel won the competition to design a new bridge, and he was awarded a contract as project engineer. The winning design was for a suspension bridge with fashionably Egyptian-influenced towers.
In 2010, newly discovered letters and documents revealed that, in producing his design, Brunel had taken advice from his father, Sir Marc Isambard Brunel. The elder Brunel had recommended including a central support for the bridge, as he did not believe a single-span bridge of such length could be constructed. His son chose to ignore his advice.
-- Construction of the Clifton Suspension Bridge
A ceremony to mark the start of the construction works was held on Monday the 20th. June 1831. Work started on blasting of St. Vincent's Rock, on the Clifton side of the gorge. Four months later work was halted by the Bristol riots, which took place after the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill, which aimed to eliminate some of the rotten boroughs and give parliamentary seats to Britain's fast growing industrial towns such as Bristol.
Five to six hundred young men were involved in the riots, and Brunel was sworn in as a special constable. The riots severely dented commercial confidence in Bristol; subscriptions to the bridge company ceased, and along with it, further construction of the bridge.
After the passing of the Act for the Great Western Railway re-established financial confidence, work resumed in 1836, but subsequent investment proved woefully inadequate. Despite the main contractors going bankrupt in 1837, the towers were built.
To enable the transfer of materials, a 1,000-foot-long (300 m) iron bar, which was 1.25 inches (32 mm) in diameter, had been drawn by capstan across the gorge.
A contract was placed with the Dowlais Ironworks to supply 600 tons of bar iron, which was to be transported to the Copperhouse foundry to be forged into bar chains.
However by 1843 funds were exhausted, and another £30,000 was needed. As the work had exceeded the time limit stated in the Act, all work stopped. In 1851, the ironwork was sold and used to build the Brunel-designed Royal Albert Bridge on the railway between Plymouth and Saltash. The towers however remained, and during the 1850's, intrepid passengers could cross the gorge in a basket slung from the iron bar.
Brunel died in 1859, without seeing the completion of the bridge. His colleagues in the Institution of Civil Engineers felt that completion of the Bridge would be a fitting memorial, and started to raise new funds. In 1860, Brunel's Hungerford suspension bridge over the Thames in London was demolished to make way for a new railway bridge to Charing Cross railway station. Its chains were purchased for use at Clifton.
A revised design was made by William Henry Barlow and Sir John Hawkshaw, with a wider, higher and sturdier deck than Brunel intended, with triple chains instead of double.
It has been argued that the size and technology of these revisions was so great that the credit for the bridge's design should go to Barlow and Hawkshaw. The towers remained in rough stone, rather than being finished in the Egyptian style.
Work on the bridge was restarted in 1862. Initially a temporary bridge was created by pulling ropes across the gorge and making a footway of wire ropes with wood planks held together with iron hoops. This was used by the workers to move a "traveller", consisting of a light frame on wheels, to transport each link individually, which would eventually make up the chains supporting the bridge.
The chains are anchored in tapering tunnels, 25 metres (82 ft) long, on either side of the bridge, and plugs of Staffordshire blue brick infilled to prevent the chains being pulled out of the narrower tunnel mouth.
After completion of the chains, vertical suspension rods were hung from the links in the chains, and large girders hung from these. The girders on either side then supported the deck, which is 3 feet (0.91 m) higher at the Clifton end than at Leigh Woods so that it gives the impression of being horizontal.
The strength of the structure was tested by spreading 500 tons of stone over the bridge. This caused it to sag by 7 inches (180 mm), but within the expected tolerances.
-- Incidents Associated With the Clifton Suspension Bridge
-- Two men were killed during the construction of the bridge.
-- In 1885, a 22-year-old woman named Sarah Ann Henley survived a suicide attempt off the bridge when her billowing skirts acted as a parachute and she landed in the thick mud banks of the tidal River Avon at low tide; she subsequently lived into her eighties.
The Clifton Suspension Bridge is well known as a suicide bridge, and is fitted with plaques that advertise the telephone number of The Samaritans. Between 1974 and 1993, 127 people fell to their deaths from the bridge. In 1998 barriers were installed on the bridge to prevent people jumping. In the four years after installation this reduced the suicide rate from eight deaths per year to four.
-- In 1957 a Filton-based RAF Vampire jet from 501 Squadron piloted by Flying officer John Greenwood Crossley flew under the deck while performing a victory roll before crashing in Leigh Woods, killing the pilot. The accident caused a landslip that led to the temporary closure of the nearby Bristol to Portishead railway line.
-- On the 1st. April 1979, the first modern bungee jumps were made from the bridge by members of the University of Oxford Dangerous Sports Club.
-- Nicolette Powell, the wife of UK rhythm and blues singer Georgie Fame, formerly the Marchioness of Londonderry, jumped to her death from the bridge on 13 August 1993.
-- A helicopter from National Police Air Service Filton flew under the bridge during a search in 1997.
-- On the 26th. November 2003, the last Concorde flight flew over the bridge before landing at Filton Aerodrome.
-- In 2003 and 2004, the weight of crowds travelling to and from the Ashton Court Festival and Bristol International Balloon Fiesta put such great strain on the bridge that it was decided to close the bridge to all motor traffic and pedestrians during the events. The closure of the bridge for major annual events has continued each year since then.
-- In April 2006, the bridge was the centrepiece of the Brunel 200 weekend, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. At the climax of the celebration a firework display was launched from the bridge. The celebrations also saw the activation of an LED-based lighting array to illuminate the bridge.
-- On the 4th. April 2009, the bridge was shut for one night to allow a crack in one of the support hangers to be repaired.
-- On the 23rd. May 2012, the London 2012 Olympic Torch relay crossed over the bridge, where two of the torchbearers came together in a "kiss" to exchange the flame in the middle of Brunel's iconic landmark.
-- On 12 February 2014 the bridge was closed to traffic due to wind for the first time in living memory.
-- Details of the Bridge
The 85-foot-tall (26 m) Leigh Woods tower stands atop a 110-foot (34 m) red sandstone-clad abutment. In 2002 it was discovered that this was not a solid structure, but contained 12 vaulted chambers up to 35 feet (11 m) high, linked by shafts and tunnels.
Roller-mounted "saddles" at the top of each tower allow movement of the chains when loads pass over the bridge. Though their total travel is minuscule, their ability to absorb forces created by chain deflection prevents damage to both tower and chain.
The bridge has three independent wrought iron chains per side, from which the bridge deck is suspended by eighty-one matching vertical wrought-iron rods ranging from 65 feet (20 m) at the ends to 3 feet (0.91 m) in the centre. Composed of numerous parallel rows of eyebars connected by bolts, the chains are anchored in tunnels in the rocks 60 feet (18 m) below ground level at the sides of the gorge.
The deck was originally laid with wooden planking, later covered with asphalt, which was renewed in 2009. The weight of the bridge, including chains, rods, girders and deck is approximately 1,500 tons.
-- Dimensions of the Bridge
Clearance: 245 ft (75 m) above high water level
Dip of chains: 70 ft (21.34 m)
Height of towers: 86 ft (26 m) above deck
Overall length: 1,352 ft (412 m)
Overall width: 31 ft (9.45 m)
Span: 702 ft 3 in (214.05 m).
