3-011-680 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The suspension bridge over the Avon at Clifton, 1864. Bridge connecting Bristol and Clifton. 'Mr. Brunel's...estimate was £57,000; but when £45,000 had been spent only the towers had been built, and the work came to a stop. His design was a chain bridge of a single span of 700 ft., two chains passing over two towers, and being anchored deep in the limestone rocks behind them. In 1843 all the money was gone, and the scheme was in abeyance for want of funds...Mr. Brunel, as it happened, had been the engineer of Hungerford Bridge; and when, therefore, its chains had to be pulled down and to give place to the bridge of the Charing-cross Railway, it occurred to Mr. Hawkshaw to have them applied to the completion of one of the greatest of all Mr. Brunel's bridge designs...The chains of Hungerford Bridge were purchased for £5000...The towers over which these chains pass are built after the massive and ponderous style of Egyptian architecture...The total span of the bridge is 702 ft. 3 in., and its height above the water is 260 ft. It is thus the longest and highest suspension-bridge in the world. All the iron work, wrought or cast, has been supplied by the Messrs. Cochrane'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.