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The Bristol Industrial Museum was a museum in Bristol, England. The museum featured exhibits documenting Bristol's maritime history, and included outdoor exhibits along Prince's Wharf on the Floating Harbour, including the Bristol Harbour Railway and a small fleet of preserved vessels. The museum was closed on 29 October 2006, to be replaced by a new "Museum of Bristol" opening on the same site in spring 2011.
Overview
The museum's indoor exhibits were housed on the two floors of a former quayside transit shed. On the lower floor was the transport gallery, which housed various land transport exhibits with a particular Bristol slant. Exhibits included what is believed to be the world's first purpose-built holiday caravan to be compared with a 1950s equivalent, the Grenville steam carriage, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, carriages and buses. On the upper floor the aviation gallery told the story of Bristols involvement in aircraft manufacture and contains a collection of Bristol-made aero engines, a Bristol-built helicopter, a mock-up flight deck of Concorde and scale models showing the many aircraft built in the city. On the same floor the story of the Port of Bristol was told with models, paintings and other exhibits. The adjacent Print & Pack gallery told the story of one of Bristol's biggest industries with machinery and products. This was a particularly popular working exhibit, with live demonstrations of printing machinery such as Linotype and Letterpress. These same exhibits also printed many of the museum's own leaflets, tickets and fliers. Elsewhere in the museum, the Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery gallery told the story of Bristol's involvement in the trans-atlantic slave trade between the UK, Africa and the Caribbean, from its early days through abolition and to recent times. Normally moored in front of the developing new museum is the collection of historic vessels, which included the 1934 fireboat "Pyronaut" and two tugs John King built as a diesel tug in 1935 and Mayflower, the world's oldest surviving steam tug built in 1861.[1][2] On the quayside outside the developing museum can be found several preserved electric dockside cargo cranes built in 1951 by Stothert & Pitt. ClosureThe museum was closed on 29 October 2006, to be replaced by a new "Museum of Bristol" opening on the same site in spring 2011[3]. A grant of UK£10.27 million has been obtained from the National Lottery, contributing to the estimated UK£25 million of the change. The current exhibits were due to be "moved into storage in other parts of the city and elsewhere in the UK", according to the Bristol Evening Post.[4] Railway
The museum railway has operated on the harbour side since 1978, with the Western Fuel Co. using the branch from the Portishead line and yard behind the museum for commercial coal traffic. When this commercial rail traffic ceased the museum railway expanded in 2000 when it started using the branch alongside the New Cut. When the Portishead Railway was relayed the connection at Ashton Junction was severed. The railway was originally a branch of the Great Western Railway and operates on selected weekends between the Museum and the SS Great Britain on standard gauge track for half a mile. The railway is currently in use as far as the Create Centre, a mile from the museum. At the height of the harbour's industrial use, the Bristol Harbour Railway had branches on Prince's Wharf on the south side of the harbour and Canon's Marsh on the north. The reinforced concrete goods shed on Canon's Marsh is now a listed building and houses At-Bristol. Little else of the railway on the north side of the harbour remains, and the railway bridge at the Cumberland Basin has also been demolished. On the south side of the harbour the railway crosses Spike Island, the narrow strip of land between the Harbour and the River Avon, and clings to the side of the river as far as the junction with the northern branch at the Cumberland Basin. Here the railway turns and crosses the river, merging first with the Portishead Railway and then the Great Western main line. The bridge is an iron swing bridge that was, before the construction of new main road nearby, a double-deck bridge carrying a road carriageway above the railway. The top deck has now been dismantled and one of the tracks lifted to make way for a footpath and cycleway, while the other track has become overgrown. Bristol City Council, in partnership with other local councils in the area, are currently proposing that the route of the railway should be used for a guided bus route to serve the south-west of the city, implying that, should the guided bus scheme go ahead, the railway will be closed.[5] Rolling stockThe railway has several small steam locomotives:
The museum also has a collection of wagons, some of which have been converted for passenger use while others are used for demonstration freight trains. Steam Crane
In front of the museum is a Fairbairn steam crane which was built by Stothert & Pitt in 1878 to load and unload ships and railway wagons with cargoes up to 35 tons. It was in regular use until 1973, and has now been restored and preserved in working order.[6] References
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