Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Here's another shot of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, taken from the embankment along the Avon. Getting far enough back, but not too far back, can be difficult without a wide angle lens.

This shot shows the motorized cradle used for maintenance of the bridge. I actually don't know what year this was installed, but it doesn't appear in older pictures. Certainly, prior to it's being added, maintenance of the bridge was probably tricky. I haven't been able to locate information on fatalities among the maintenance crews before as opposed to after the cradle's installation.

This is a view of the River Avon from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, looking south towards the city centre of Bristol. Although the Avon is associated with Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, it is also the main river through Bristol, and traditionally Bristol's access to the Bristol Channel. This is not insignificate historically as for several centuries Bristol's port was the most important aspect of its economy.

This is a side view from the bridge, looking north towards the Clifton Observatory.

This is a memorial plaque on the bridge, albeit added in 1986, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the foundation stone, rather than to discuss Brunel in any depth.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is probably the most famous landmark in the Clifton area. It started as one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's earliest projects, but was not completed until 1864, five years after Brunel's death. Much of the delay was financial, as several of the sponsoring companies went bankrupt. Because it wasn't a railway bridge, it didn't benefit from the success of any of Brunel's railway companies. In fact, the opposite was true. As late as 1851, materials were taken from the Clifton project in order to build the Royal Albert Bridge on the Great Western Railway (also called the Saltash bridge). Eventually, the Clifton Bridge was completed with chains (it's a suspension bridge, but uses chains instead of cables) taken from the Hungerford Suspension Bridge into Charing Cross Station in London. At that time (1860), the Charing Cross Bridge was being rebuilt. Part of the impetus was to memorialize Brunel following his death.