Bed - Breakfast - Bristol - Bath - Self Catering - B&B
Box Hedge Farm Bed and Breakfast
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Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and launched in July 1843, the ss Great
Britain was the largest and most powerful ship built. She was the first
propeller driven ship to cross the Atlantic and was the fore-runner of all the
great liners and the Mother of all modern ships. Disaster struck when the Great
Britain was on her way to breaking the record for the number of passengers taken
on a transatlantic crossing. She ran aground on the sands of Dundrum Bay,
Ireland in 1846. The Great Western Steam Ship Company could not afford to repair
her and she was sold to Gibbs, Bright and Company of Liverpool.
The new owners used her as a fast and luxurious emigrant ship taking over
250,000 people to Australia over a period of twenty years. She was used as a
troop ship during the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, was converted to a
sailing ship, a windjammer, and took Welsh coal to San Francisco around Cape
Horn. She finally ended up sold to the Falkland Islands Company and used as a
storage vessel for wool. In 1937 her working life came to a temporary end when
she was beached in Sparrow Cove. She stayed there for 33 years until brought
back to Britain in 1970 to be restored to her full glory.
Telephone: 0117 926 0680