The Engine House was designed by Sir Marc Isambard Brunel to be part of the infrastructure of the Thames Tunnel. Brunel was a showman as well as an engineer, and I’m sure he would have approved of holding performances in this new underground gallery. Following another disastrous breach and the death of six men in 1828, Brunel ran out of funds. She has previously held positions as Head of Exhibitions at the National Gallery, London, Head of Exhibitions at the RIBA, Head of Exhibition Co-ordination at Tate Britain, and she was the Courtauld Gallery’s first Registrar. However, it did become a tourist hit, attracting about two million people a year, each paying a penny to pass through.In 1865, the tunnel was purchased by the East London Railway Company and converted for rail use. Brunel organised the world’s first underground concert party here in 1827, and the Museum celebrates and interprets music and theatre as well as engineering. She had a senior career in international publishing before her museums career, working for the Economist newspaper, the BBC, and Reed International Publishing.

At the beginning of the 19th century, London was one of the busiest river ports in the world, and the 600-year old stone bridge over Thames was long out of capacity. The tunnel was intended for horse … This roadway was shared by ox-carts, wagons, coaches and pedestrians coming from both directions. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, then a teenager, was washed so high up the shaft that a foreman dragged him out of the water by his coat collar. We had to respect and protect Brunel’s legacy while providing people the opportunity to enjoy the space in new and exciting ways.”Robert Hulse, director of the Brunel Museum, said: “We are delighted to be able to forge ahead with our plans to grant a new lease of life to this important piece of engineering history. It is said that Brunel was inspired by the burrowing efficiency of a shipworm on a piece of submerged timber which he had picked up while working in a shipyard.Brunel’s tunneling shield consisted of a large, rectangular, grid of iron frame with 36 chambers distributed into three levels. During the day it will be used as interpretation space to teach about the work of both Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and in the evening it will be able to host 135 people for events and performances.The project £250,000 project, which is being funded by a grant from Tate expressed his honour at working in such a historic location: “We’re so pleased that this project is to become a reality, it’s a rare honour to work in such an important historical setting. Although the bridge was some 8 meters wide, only half of it was available for traffic. The main contractor was George Burge of Herne Bay. The filthy, sewage-laden water from the Thames above dripped down from the roof of the tunnel and poisoned the poorly ventilated space. The so-called "sinking shaft" was the first completed project by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who at the time was working for his father Marc Isambard Brunel. Brunel designed a grand classical portal for the west end of the tunnel but the east portal is less flamboyant with simple … But Marc Brunel thought otherwise. The Victorian shaft of London’s Thames Tunnel has undergone an unlikely transformation into a cultural venue. Brunel’s son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, had to lower himself in a diving bell from a boat to repair the hole at the bottom of the river, throwing bags filled with clay to plug the hole. The front was pressed firmly against the tunnel face, and the workers would remove the boards one at a time and excavate the earth behind it to a predetermined depth. The proposal to build an entrance to accommodate wheeled vehicle also failed owing to cost, and in the beginning, it was only used by pedestrians. By November 1825 the Rotherhithe shaft was in place and tunnelling work could begin. Then, in 1805, a group of Cornish engineers tried to dig between Rotherhithe and Wapping, but the clay was soft and soaked with water, and the mining engineers, used to hard rock, was unable to keep water out of the tunnel. Then the entire iron frame was laboriously moved forward, and the newly excavated section was shored up with bricks and mortar.The tunneling shield was revolutionary, but the work was slow, progressing at only 8 to 12 feet a week.

The Rotherhithe (or “sinking”) shaft was built by Marc Brunel, Isambard’s father, as the original access point to build the Thames Tunnel, which was the first underwater tunnel in the world. The shaft at the entrance to London's Thames Tunnel by 19th-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel is set to be transformed into a major new venue. Brunel promised to get rid of the "objectionable" curve, and plans of the revised straight alignment were deposited in 1838. The Thames Tunnel was a triumph of civil engineering, but it was not a financial success. The work was not safe, and setbacks meant the tunnel took nearly twenty years to complete, at an expense … Preliminary shafts were dug, the work beginning in 1837, to ascertain the geological conditions, on the same straight alignment on which the tunnel was eventually built. 24 April 2015. The project was abandoned and the engineers declared that a tunnel underneath the river was not feasible. Credit: The Brunel Museum This shelf was …

At peak hours, a crossing could take up to an hour.It was clear that another crossing was needed, but this new crossing was not to be a bridge but a tunnel under the River. When the tunnel opened in 1843 it was used as a pedestrian crossing under the River Thames. He also built a better tunneling shield capable of resisting the pressure of the Thames.