Clifton Suspension Bridge

The Clifton Suspension Bridge hangs across the Avon Gorge at its narrowest point, 245 feet above the river at high water, joining Clifton, on the Bristol side, to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. The bridge, a single span of just over 700 feet between two stone towers, sits across it with the lightness of a drawn line. It is the emblem of Bristol, and it is also a monument to its first designer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who won the commission and did not live to see it finished.

The story is a long one. A Bristol merchant, William Vick, left money in 1753 for a stone bridge across the gorge; by 1829 his bequest had grown, but not nearly enough, and a competition was held instead. Thomas Telford, called in to judge, rejected all the entries, arguing that no span could safely exceed 577 feet, and proposed his own bridge on tall Gothic towers. It proved too expensive, and after a second competition in 1831 Brunel persuaded the judges in his favour with a suspension bridge on fashionably Egyptian-style towers. Work began in 1831, was halted by the Bristol riots that year, resumed in 1836 and ran out of money in 1843, leaving the towers standing unfinished in rough stone. After Brunel's death in 1859 his colleagues at the Institution of Civil Engineers raised funds to complete it as his memorial, reusing the chains of his demolished Hungerford Bridge in London. William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw revised the design, and the bridge opened in December 1864, lit for the occasion by arc lamps and magnesium flares, the first outdoor electric lighting in Bristol.

Look closely and the two towers are not twins: the Clifton tower has side cut-outs, while the Leigh tower has more pointed arches and stands on a 110-foot abutment faced in red sandstone. On each side three wrought-iron eyebar chains run over roller-mounted saddles on the tower tops, and 81 pairs of wrought-iron rods carry the deck. The bridge has seen the first modern bungee jump in 1979 and the final Concorde flight in 2003 passing overhead, and on celebrations it is still lit with thousands of bulbs. A visitor centre stands at the Leigh Woods end.

Getting there

The bridge is in the Clifton district of Bristol, about 2 km from the city centre. Bristol Airport (BRS) is about 10 km away. Pedestrians and cyclists cross free of charge; vehicles pay a toll that has funded the bridge's upkeep since it opened.