A couple of weeks ago I visited the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe and did a tour of the Thames Tunnel and Grand Entrance Hall. It was fascinating.

Father and son team Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel began construction on the Thames tunnel in 1825. It was meant to take three years. It took 18 and was described by tunnel workers as “the worst job in the world”.

When it finally opened, the Thames Tunnel represented a feat of engineering never before seen in the world. It was the first under-river tunnel of its kind, the birthplace of the Tube (globally, as London’s was the first underground railway system).

Although intended for transporting goods off ships beneath the Thames, due to a lack of pulleys, the tunnel’s first use, explained our thoroughly entertaining tour guide Robert Hulse (director of the Brunel Museum), was as an underwater “shopping mall”. And, while the stalls and “Underwater Fancy Fair” attracted astonishing numbers of visitors from day one, the tunnel eventually became a place for shady dealings and, if you’ll pardon the pun, underworld characters.

I won’t say more, because you should see it for yourself. Even better – join a Brunel Museum tour of the tunnel by train (the newly opened East London line goes right through Brunel’s tunnel) and/or take the Thamesside Walk through Bermondsey and Rotherhithe this Bank Holiday Weekend, which includes a tour of the Grand Entrance Hall.

Brunel Museum: www.brunel-museum.org.uk
Thamesside Walk: Meet at Bermondsey Tube Station Monday 30 August 2010 at 1.30pm (£8, concs. £6)

The Brunel Museum’s nearest station is Rotherhithe on the new East London line. The Brunel is one  of the Culture Line museums www.cultureline.org.uk

Did you know:

• The name Croydon comes from the Anglo Saxon words for crocus (croh) valley (denu)?
• And a possible derivation of Sydenham is the Anglo-Saxon “Cippas’ settlement” – meaning drunkard’s settlement?
• Or that the guys with the task of building Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s mammoth Thames Tunnel were paid in beer?

These were just some of the fascinating titbits Lettice and I picked up at Overground Uncovered at the London Transport Museum last night.

We had an early preview of the new exhibition along with many of the people responsible for the completion of the exciting new London Overground line, which currently runs from Dalston Junction to West Croydon.

The new exhibition reflects the line’s colouring (lots of orange) and tells the stories of the people and places that have now been firmly pulled into London’s ever-fascinating transport system.

The exhibition contains three sections:

1. Connecting Communities: graphic art from the museum’s archive combined with modern photographs and personal stories from the people who live there
2. The Thames Tunnel: the story behind Brunel’s incredible feat of engineering, which also became a tourist attraction!
3. A new train set for London: time-lapse videos and photos showing the construction of the new trains and the line, plus there’s a Top Trumps game compares the new trains with the old steam locomotives of the 1870s

It’s not a huge exhibit, but it makes a really nice, bang-up-to-date addition to the already brilliant London Transport Musuem’s collection.

Overground Uncovered runs at the London Transport Museum from 29 June until 31 March 2011.