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:

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:

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.”