Clifton Suspension Bridge Gallery

Clifton Suspension Bridge competition drawing 1, by Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge: Drawing number 1. Section and plan at C.E.
Bridge at top of cliff, Romanesque arch at each end, the first design...for a bridge of 760 feet span...height of 215 feet above high water mark...towers 70 foot high...built on the cliffs to carry the chains'. Brunel did not approve of this design, as the situation was not favourable to architectural effect, a point to which the committee attached great importance: but he suggested it from its being somewhat more economical than other plans (Isambard Brunel, Life of I.K.Brunel, p. 47).
Image used by Courtesy of the Brunel Institute - a collaboration of the SS Great Britain Trust and the University of Bristol

© University of Bristol / SS Great Britain Trust