Immaculate Bed and Breakfast near the ss Great Britain, Bristol.

The ss Great Britain is a museum in its own right and the winner of 16 major awards including England's Visitor Attraction of the Year 2007!
The curator of the ss Great Britain Trust cares for around 50,000 separate objects and archives, including, of course, the ss Great Britain herself.

The ss Great Britain was a world first when she was launched in Bristol in 1843. This uniquely successful ship design brought together new technologies in a way that transformed world travel.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59), the most daring of the great Victorian engineers, conceived the groundbreaking combination of a screw propeller, an iron hull, and a massive 1000-horsepower steam engine.

She was designed initially for the Trans-Atlantic luxury passenger trade, and could carry 252 first and second-class passengers and 130 crew. She is widely recognised as one of the technological forerunners of modern shipping and exemplifies the industry and inventiveness of the Victorian era, while symbolising the birth of international passenger travel and world communications.

The ss Great Britain was immediately successful - on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic she smashed the previous speed record with a crossing of 15-days.

Although effectively a prototype, she continued sailing until 1886, and travelled thirty-two times around the world and nearly one million miles at sea. She was finally abandoned in the Falkland Islands, in 1937, after more than 40 years use as a floating warehouse. In 1970 an ambitious salvage effort brought her home to Bristol, where today she is conserved in the dry dock where she was originally built.

Ship and the Listed Grade II dockyard together are now under active consideration as part of the Great Western 'UNESCO World Heritage Site'.

There is a pay and display car park next to Brunel's ss Great Britain, alternatively visitors can travel by train, harbour ferry, bike or bus.

Call or e-mail Breconridge B&B for availability and take that break you have been promising yourselves!