THE RIVER AVON—CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE
BRISTOL, whence one comes most conveniently to the coast of Somerset, is
among the most fortunate of cities. It has a long and interesting
history, both in the warlike and the commercial sorts, and its citizens
have ever been public-spirited men, of generous impulses. (It is not
really necessary for the discreet historian to go into the story of
Bristol’s old-time thriving business of kidnapping and slave-trading, by
which her merchants grew wealthy, and so we will say nothing about it,
nor enlarge upon the wealth-producing import of Jamaica rum.) It has
many noble and interesting buildings, and a lovely and striking
countryside is at its very gates, while the river Avon, to which Bristol
owes the possibility of its greatness, flows out to sea, amid the most
romantic river scenery in England, at Clifton.
This immense gorge of the Avon was created, according to tradition, A.D.
33, on the day of the Crucifixion, in the course of a world-wide
earthquake accompanying that event. Then, according to that strictly
unreliable story, the hills were rent asunder, and the ancient British
camps at St. Vincent’s and at Borough Walls and Stoke Leigh had the
newly formed river Avon set between them. Geologists know better than
this, but in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Miss Ann
Powell sat upon the heights of Clifton and, contemplating the scene, was
filled with great thoughts, which she eventually poured forth in the
shape of something then thought to be poetry, the tradition was not
considered to be so absurd as it now is. In her “Clifton, a Poem,”
published in 1821, we learn some things new to history, especially as to
the year A.D. 33. Then, according to Miss Ann Powell, the Romans were
encamped here, in victorious arrogance, and the very day of the
Crucifixion chanced to be that which the Roman general had fixed for a
reception of conquered British chiefs:
Our humbled kings upon his levee wait,
This day appointed as a day of state.
Unfortunately for the poem, the Romans were not in Britain at the time.
They had not been here for eighty-seven years, since the last departure
of Julius Caesar, in B.C. 54, and were not to land on these shores again
until ten years more had passed: in A.D. 43. As a description of an
earthquake which did not happen, and an account of disasters which did
not befall people who were not here, the poem is a somewhat remarkable
production. The authoress herself is so overwrought that she mixes past
and present tenses. Let us see how Romans and Britons behaved under the
appalling circumstances:
Now darkness fast the distant hills surround;
Beneath their feet, slow trembling, mov’d the ground;
High tempests rose that shook the stately roof,
Nor was the conqu’ror’s heart to this quite proof.
“Sure nature is dissolv’d!” the Roman cry’d.
“Sure nature is dissolv’d!” the guests reply’d.
Now awful thunders with majestic sound,
And vivid lightnings separate the ground;
The crash tremendous fill’d each heart with fear;
The sound of gushing waters strikes the ear.
Ah! now destruction’s hurl’d thro’ earth and sky;
Men seeking safety know not where to fly;
They through the ramparts run to make their way;
The guards lay prostrate there with sore dismay.
The Britons mount their horses—fly in haste:
No time in idle compliments they waste.
How delicious that last line! “No time in idle compliments they waste.”
It flings us down from the heights of a world in pieces to the inanities
of the “How d’ye do’s” of afternoon teas.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, opened in 1864, is a bridge with a romantic
history. From the early years of the eighteenth century it had been
proposed to bridge the Avon at or near this point, by some means, and
thus save the descent from Clifton to Rownham Ferry, with the
uncomfortable and sometimes perilous crossing of the Avon and the climb
up to Abbot’s Leigh.
The ferry at Rownham had been the property of the abbots of the
Augustinian monastery of Bristol, from 1148, and was of necessity
frequently crossed by those dignified churchmen, who in course of time,
as the size and trade of Bristol increased, derived a considerable
revenue from their rights here, which, at the Reformation, passed to
their successors, the Dean and Chapter of Bristol, who in their turn
were succeeded by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
At this point was also a ford, practicable at low water for horsemen,
but, as the tide here rises swiftly and to a height of forty-five feet,
it was generally of a hazardous character, as seems to be sufficiently
shown by the fact that in 1610 one Richard George was drowned in thus
crossing, while on December 27th of the same year the eldest son of one
Baron Snigge, Recorder of Bristol, met a like fate. On the Bristol side
stands, among other houses on the quay, the Rownham Tavern, and on the
Somerset shore stood a somewhat imposing hostelry called the “New Inn.”
The building of the last-named house of entertainment and refreshment
remains to this day, but it is now a species of tea-garden and picnic
place, with arbours in which on summer days parties may make modestly
merry and listen to the murmur of Bristol’s traffic borne, like a
subdued roar, across the river. In the rear of the old house, the
single-track Bristol and Portishead branch of the Great Western Railway
runs at the foot of the cliffs and presently tunnels under them, below
the Suspension Bridge.
The first person ever to put into shape the old aspirations of Bristol
for a bridge across the gorge of the Avon at this point was Alderman
Vick, of Bristol. He died in 1753, leaving by his will a sum of £1,000,
to be invested until the capital sum reached a total of £10,000, a sum
he imagined would be sufficient to build a stone bridge here. For
seventy-seven years this generous bequest accumulated as he had willed,
and by 1830 had reached £8,000. It was then felt, as engineering had
already made great strides, and as the suspension principle had been
tried in various places, successfully and economically, that the
bridging of this gulf should no longer be delayed. It had long been
evident that £10,000 would not nearly suffice to build a bridge of any
kind here, but it was thought that, if an Act of Parliament were
obtained for the undertaking of the work and a company formed, the
necessary funds could be found to begin the construction forthwith; the
company to be recouped by charging tolls. The Parliamentary powers were
therefore obtained, the company formed, capital subscribed, and Telford,
the foremost engineer of the day, invited to prepare plans and
estimates. Telford’s plan provided for a suspension bridge with two iron
towers, and he estimated the cost at £52,000. Telford was an engineer
first, a practical, matter-of-fact Scotsman, and not by way of being an
artist. His fine, but not sufficiently grandiose, scheme was, therefore,
rejected, and that of Brunel, who was next invited to prepare plans,
accepted, although his estimate was £5,000 higher. Brunel’s success was
undoubtedly due to the picturesque design he made, and the stress he
laid upon the fact that the romantic scenery of this spot might easily
be ruined by a mere utilitarian structure. The bridge as we see it
completed to-day is in essentials his design, but the two great towers
from which the roadway is suspended are plain to severity, instead of
being, as he had contemplated, richly sculptured. The towers, he
explained to the committee of selection, were on the model of the
gateways to the ruins of Tentyra, in Egypt, and would harmonise well
with the rugged cliffs and hanging woods of Clifton and Abbot’s Leigh.
In 1831 the foundations of Brunel’s bridge were laid, amid great local
rejoicings. Felicitations on the occasion were exchanged. Sir Eardley
Wilmot, first imagining an Elizabethan Bristolian returned to earth,
and, coming to Rownham Ferry, finding the place just the same as he had
left it three hundred years earlier, then congratulated all and sundry
on this reproach being about to vanish, in the proximate completion of
the works, and all was joy and satisfaction.
But money grew scarce; the works were more costly than had been
anticipated, and the furious riots of 1831 in Bristol rendered capital
shy and fresh funds difficult to obtain. In 1833 Brunel was desired to
reduce the estimates, and did reduce them by £4,000, at the cost of
sacrificing much of the ornamental work. In 1836 another
foundation-stone was laid, and a communication opened in mid-air across
the river, by means of an iron bar stretched across. Along this the
workmen travelled daily, suspended in a wicker basket; a sight that
every day drew fascinated crowds. A demand to cross in this manner at
once sprang up among people who wanted a new sensation, and the bridge
company earned an appreciable sum by charging for these aerial trips.
While the novelty was very new, the fare across was five shillings; it
then sank by degrees to half a crown, two shillings, and one shilling.
The total sum thus netted was £125.
Delays occurred in 1836 owing to the contractors going bankrupt, but the
company itself then assumed the work. In 1840 the great towers were
finished, but by 1843 the bridge was still but half finished, although
£45,000 had been expended. Money was again very scarce and work was at
last stopped, and in 1853 the half of the ironwork and the flooring that
had been delivered were sold to satisfy creditors.
Work was again resumed in 1860, an opportunity shortly afterwards
arising to cheaply purchase the ironwork of Hungerford Suspension
Bridge, which, built by Brunel in 1845 across the Thames, from
Hungerford Market, at the foot of Villiers Street, Strand, to the
Lambeth shore, at a cost of £100,000, was about to be removed to make
way for the iron lattice-girder bridge of the South-Eastern Railway,
still a feature of that spot.
Meanwhile, the original Act of Parliament for the building of Clifton
Bridge had expired, and it was necessary to obtain new powers, to form a
new company, and to raise more funds. All these things were
accomplished, not without considerable difficulty. The ironwork of
Hungerford Bridge was purchased for £5,000, and the new Act was obtained
in 1861. This, however, laid an obligation upon the new company to
compensate the owners of Rownham Ferry for any loss. It declared that
“persons having a right of ferry across the river Avon called Rownham
Ferry may, in some respect, be injured by the building and using of the
Bridge; and it is fit, in case such Ferry should be injured or
deteriorated thereby, that a fair compensation should be made.” It is
understood that this compensation to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
on behalf of the Dean and Chapter of Bristol, the old owners of the
ferry, was estimated at £200 per annum.
At length, in spite of a shortness of funds that always accompanied the
progress of the enterprise, the bridge was opened in September 1864, and
has, in all the time since then, proved to be a great convenience for
traffic making for Clevedon and adjacent parts of the coast. It has also
been a favourite resort for persons of suicidal tendencies, who have,
indeed, often come from great distances for the purpose of putting an
end to themselves; being unable to screw up a sufficiency of desperate
courage elsewhere. Indeed, instances have been known of apparently sane
and contented people, finding themselves on this height, suspended in
mid-air, being unable to resist a sudden impulse to fling themselves
off, and many others there are who, afraid of losing command over
themselves, have never yet dared face the crossing.
Mere figures do not suffice to give an idea of the majesty and sense of
vastness conjured up by Clifton Suspension Bridge, viewed either from
below, or along its lengthy roadway; the picturesqueness of the
situation has also to be taken into account. But they must needs be
given. The suspended roadway between the two great towers is 703 feet in
length and some 34 feet wide, and hangs 245 feet above the river Avon.
The towers themselves are 80 feet in height. The entire weight of the
bridge is 1,500 tons. The toll payable by foot-passengers is the modest
one of one penny each. Motor-cars pay sixpence for a single journey, or
ninepence returning the same day. A curious privilege was secured by Sir
John Greville Smyth, Bart., of Ashton Court, who very appreciably helped
on the construction by taking £2,500 shares in the company, and by a
gift of a further £2,500. In consideration of his generosity, no tolls
were payable by him personally, or any of his horses, carriages, or
servants, or by the owner for the time being of Ashton Court, for a
period of thirty years from the opening of the bridge.
Engineers and men of science tell us that suspension bridges and the
like structures are safest when they swing most. There can, therefore,
at any rate, be no doubt of the entire safety of Clifton Suspension
Bridge, which vibrates sensibly to a vigorous stamp of the foot;
alarmingly to those who have not thoroughly assimilated that engineering
rough formula of stability. That there can be too much sway or vibration
is evident by the traffic across being strictly limited in speed; while
the theory of a sudden application of heavy weights being likely to snap
the chains and rods that hold up the roadway is endorsed by companies of
soldiers marching this way being always bidden to change step. It
should, however, be said that not all engineers support this theory.
The great tower rising massively above the Somerset bank of the Avon
bears an inscription carved prominently upon its stonework: a Latin
inscription, a belated example of the priggish classicism, beloved by
pedants in the eighteenth century, which set up, all over the country,
statements wholly unintelligible to ninety-nine out of every hundred
wayfarers. “_Suspensa vix via fit_,” says this monumental line—that is
to say, rendered into English, “With difficulty can a roadway be
suspended.” The thing is self-evident anywhere, and much more so here,
when you gaze from this suspended roadway down upon the gulf, and on to
the tall masts of some sailingvessel arriving at, or leaving, the port
of Bristol. The various attempts made by passers-by at an understanding
of the Latin sentence are amusing, but the toll-taker appears to have
arrived at the sense of it, by favour, no doubt, of some one learned in
the dead languages; for he was observed by the present writer to answer
the inquiries of two ladies in this wise: “Well, you see, it’s a bit
above me; but I’ve always been given to understand it to mean that this
yer bridge was made with great difficulty.”
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