Press Releases

BRUNEL – Gweithiau yng Nghymru: Works in Wales

The National Waterfront Museum launches a new temporary exhibition on April 6th 2006, which will look at the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in South Wales. Using modern and archive images the display will show how Brunel’s work on railways, bridges, docks and ships in this area helped to revolutionise transport and bring Wales to the forefront of the international industrial revolution.

Visitors will be able to find out how Brunel overcame the difficult terrain of Wales to enable the latest invention of steam driven locomotives to bring coal and iron down from the valleys to the coast. Here he built docks to export our products to the rest of the world. Amongst the achievements were the Landore viaduct, which had the longest timber built span in the world; the work done at Milford in Pembrokeshire on the PSS Great Eastern - the world’s largest ship in its day; and the South Wales Railway, connecting Wales to London and slashing the journey time to less than a quarter of that taken by coach.

This exhibition will celebrate the bicentenary of Brunel’s birth this year and is one of several celebrations being organised across Wales and the rest of Britain. It will tour several Welsh venues after it closes at the National Waterfront Museum in June. Full details of the tour will be available on the

The display has been generously sponsored by the Institution of Civil Engineers and the South Wales Institute of Engineers. Research for the display was assisted by Stephen K. Jones, the renowned expert on Brunel’s work in Wales.

The National Waterfront Museum is part of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, , which operates seven museums across Wales - National Museum Cardiff, St Fagans: National History Museum, National Roman Legion Museum, Caerleon, Big Pit: National Coal Museum, Blaenafon, National Wool Museum, Dre-fach Felindre, National Slate Museum, Llanberis and the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea.

Entry to all Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales sites is free, thanks to the support of the Welsh Assembly Government.

For more details contact:

Fay Harris
Press and Marketing Officer
Email Fay Harris
(01792) 638970