Monday 21 August 2017

Happy Birthday Kingdom


I would like to be in South Carolina for a few minutes today. The nearby Box railway tunnel (which is over a mile long, cutting through a large hill on its route to London) was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. What a great name for your boy - Kingdom. Even Isambard for that matter.

There was always a rumour that Brunel aligned the tunnel so that the sun rose directly central at the East end on the morning of his birthday, but everyone said this was not true. Last year they did some work on the tunnel during his birthday period and they stopped the trains, making it easier to take photos without being killed by the 7.45 to Paddington, but more difficult to get to London from the West. This photo was taken at dawn on Brunel's birthday.






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10 comments:

  1. Rachel Phillips21 August 2017 at 03:48

    There was an interesting programme on tv the other night about the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Brunel and the only reason he ended up in Bristol was because he was sent there by his father to recuperate after an accident during the building of the Thames tunnel. If that hadn't happened he would never have been in the West Country and been involved in the Great Western Railway and the Box Tunnel or the Clifton Bridge. He got bored and wanted something to do.

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    1. Tom Stephenson21 August 2017 at 11:45

      I didn't know that is how he ended up in the West. As a kid we would always drive through the Rotherhithe Tunnel. My father's last home during the war was on the nearside of it. I hat this fucking American spell-checker. I hate fucking Google and I hate pretty much everything tonight. My glass is half empty and I've dropped my bread and butter the wrong way down on the floor.

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    2. Rachel Phillips21 August 2017 at 12:39

      I'll keep a low profile tonight then.

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  2. Jacqueline @ HOME21 August 2017 at 04:44

    I love his name .... whenever I hear it , I cannot believe that someone named their child Isambard Kingdom ..... just googled it ..... Isambard comes from the German name Eisenbarth which means glittering like iron which is so appropriate !!! ..... and Kingdom was his mother's maiden name . Well, I've learnt something today !! XXXX

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  3. Jennifer21 August 2017 at 06:49

    I wish you were here, too. We could have drinks and watch the sun go black.

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    1. Tom Stephenson21 August 2017 at 11:47

      Only a few minutes to go for you as I write...

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  4. The Weaver of Grass21 August 2017 at 10:43

    I think with names like that you couldn't fail to be great in one field or another.

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  5. Vivian22 August 2017 at 05:46

    Oh, thank you for this post! I am a big fan of Brunel, who I "met" during my trip to London last August: I was looking for something different to do and after wandering around the inter webs I found out about Midnight Apothecary, a roaming cocktail party that uses the Brunel Museum as one of its sites. Never heard of Brunel, but a museum about a tunnel is right up my alley. So that's how I ended up several hundred feet below Rotherhithe, listening in awe to a talk about the 8th Wonder of the World, this Tunnel that I'd never heard of in my 40 years of travel and work in London. And then we headed to the roof of the museum (spoiler alert: the museum is all of two stories tall) and had a dandy party under the stars, roasting marshmallows and drinking strange-flavored bevies. Wonderful evening. And now I've put Box Tunnel on my Wish List for my next visit to the UK. I am a HUGE Brunel fan. Thank you for broadening my Brunel awareness.

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