
“The ornament of Bristol and the wonder of the age”
Those words were spoken by Sir Abraham Elton of Clevedon Court, in his speech at the laying of the foundation stone of Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge in 1831. The bridge has indeed become “the ornament of Bristol”, its image being used almost universally as the symbol of the city. I say “almost universally”, because a recent television comedy set in Bristol, “Ruby Speaking”, deliberately avoided showing the bridge as the programme makers considered it such a cliché! But that in itself shows how omnipresent images of the bridge have become.
But what about “the wonder of the age”? Indeed, the bridge defied expectations. Even though Thomas Telford, who judged the first bridge design competition, considered the bridge too long to be safe – and there were doubts about how well it would stand up to the prevailing winds funnelling down the Avon Gorge – the bridge still stands, unlike most suspension bridges of its time. The traffic it carries daily is far in excess of what Brunel and his successors Hawkshaw and Barlow envisaged.
However, there is another “wonder of the age” that ties in rather beautifully with the bridge: aircraft. Sir George White, chairman of the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company, realised in 1909 that aircraft were the future, and he founded the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (later the Bristol Aeroplane Company, BAC) in Filton. Its first product was the Bristol Boxkite, a slender contraption that appears to be built of little more than cardboard and string – but it flew. Sir George, with his flair for publicity to garner interest in his ventures, set up a demonstration of flight on the Downs in November 1910. And of course, the Downs affords a wonderful view of the bridge: what better way to draw parallels with earlier examples of technological advance and excellence? The phrase “the wonder of the age” could now be true of aircraft as well as of the bridge.
Bristol Boxkite piloted by Maurice Tétard over Clifton Suspension Bridge, 12 November 1910. Sir George White’s son Stanley was a passenger. Photo by kind permission of Bristol Archives (Bristol Archives PicBox/1/Air/2a).
Move forward almost a century, and another Bristol aircraft flies past the bridge: Concorde, on its final flight before being retired at the Filton site where it was built. The route of that flight was carefully planned: merely zipping from Heathrow to Filton was ruled out, as the organisers realised that the city would wish to have a final glimpse of its beautiful creation. So the organisers mapped out a lap of honour, to enable the whole city to come out and wave goodbye; it was quite deliberate that the route encompassed the bridge and Brunel’s great ship SS Great Britain. Once again, and quite deliberately, the organisers brought engineering marvels and technological excellence to the minds of all who witnessed the flight: this time, “the wonder of the age” was the world’s only successful supersonic airliner, a description still unmatched at the time of writing.

It’s interesting to note that the Boxkite and Concorde were the “bookends” of the BAC’s output: the first and the last. Concorde was the last aeroplane to be fully assembled at Filton before Airbus took over, and now only wings are made there. But the bridge still stands, still the ornament of Bristol. One wonders what next “wonder of the age” will use the bridge to inspire awe.
Maggie Aherne
Volunteer at Aerospace Bristol, Clifton Suspension Bridge and Brunel’s SS Great Britain