Have you ever wanted to complete a tour centred on Brunel's life and achievements in Bristol, but your schedule hasn't aligned with the available tours?
VoiceMap has come up with a solution: Brunel’s Bristol: A Self-Guided Tour from SS Great Britain to Clifton Bridge.
The tour includes commentary from a professional tour guide throughout the 3km walking tour.
It costs £6.42 per person, which provides lifetime access to the tour in English and takes between one hour and one hour 15 minutes to complete on average.
The tour starts at the Lloyds Amphitheatre Bristol with some background on how the app works and a bit of background history about Bristol, originally known as "Brigstowe" and first recorded in an Anglo-Saxon record of 1021.
A transcript of the audio extracts is also available on the app, making it slightly easier to follow if in a noisy location or without headphones or if you rather read at your own pace than listen to the audio. The location of the next stop and the distance away can also be followed through the map on the app.
The tour continues onto Hannover Quay where it talks about how Brigstowe was founded in the Middle Ages and originally stood on the bend in the river where Castle Park is.
It also does not shy away from Bristol's slave trade history as the audio describes how the 1600s saw the start of the "triangle trade" where textiles were brought to the African coasts, ships were emptied and loaded with slaves that carried to America before loading the ships with sugar and tobacco to complete the triangle by returning to the British Isles.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel is first introduced into the narrative of the tour on the third stop which discusses his childhood.
The tour continues by Harbour Inlet where it discusses Brunel's father's most famous project - the world's first underwater tunnel running the River Thames in London and between the docks at Wapping and Rotherhithe - and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's near-death experience in the third out of 18 years of construction, when one of the times the Thames broke through the tunnel, Brunel was pulled from the water barely alive.
He decided to spend his recovery in Bristol, which became his adopted home and where he became chief engineer for the Great Western Railway from 1883, singlehandedly surveyed a 119-mile railway line between London and Bristol and designed London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads stations.
Passing by Spoke and Stringer and Gasworks Lane, the tour continues with the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which began in 1831 but was halted almost immediately due to civil unrest.
Back on the riverside and through Capricorn Place, the tour describes how riots broke out across the country after reforms aimed at giving more parliamentary power to cities like Bristol had failed.
The unrest was put down after cavalry commander Thomas Brereton led his mounted soldiers into Bristol's Queens Square and met the rioters head-on, killing 4 rioters, and injuring 86.
The tour pauses to admire the statue of Samuel Plimsoll before discussing the SS Great Britain which was the first steel-hulled transatlantic liner and the first to be powered by a propeller at her stern instead of paddles at her side, and whose dimensions kept changing from the original plans.
From Hotwell Road to Mardyke Landing and towards the Pumphouse, her narrative continues.
She was launched on July 19th 1843 but remained trapped in Bristol Harbour until December 1844 due to her dimensions, and completed her maiden voyage in July 1845 where she failed to break the speed record on her journey from Liverpool to New York, and during her third trip in 1846, she ran aground off the coast of Ireland where she was stuck until August 1847, when the last of her company's funds were used to tow her to Liverpool where she was sold for £3m of today's money (£11m less than her building costs).
She was refitted and ran trips to Australia from 1852 until 1882 where she was converted into a coal ship until 1886 when, following an on-board fire, she was used as a floating coal bunker until 1937 when she was abandoned. In 1970 she was brought back home and repaired to her current form.
Past the Pumphouse and Cumberland Basin, the tour discusses Brunel's Great Western Railway, before passing by Brunel's Swivel Bridge and making its way to the Old Clifton Rocks Railway and up the (very steep) trail to the official Clifton Suspension Bridge Viewpoint, and finishing the narrative of the Suspension Bridge which was finished and modified by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1864, five years after Brunel's death.
Overall, it was an enjoyable tour with some stunning views of the riverside on a sunny day and (after a tiring uphill walk) a beautiful view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
The tour was very detailed and gave quite a lot of background I did not know before. The path also took me through locations I had not passed by before, although, at some points, the map was not up to date and I had to find alternative routes.
The tour also involves steps in the second half which, unfortunately, does not make it wheelchair friendly."
Scroll through for photos from the walk:
1. Clifton Suspension Bridge
2. Lloyds Amphitheatre
3. Lloyds Amphitheatre
4. Harbourside