The Brunel Museum with a modest exhibition helps to understand how Britain in the nineteenth century became the technological leader of the world: country appreciated and treasured for its engineers.

Marc Brunel was actually a Frenchman, forced to flee France during the Revolution because of his royalist views. For some time he worked in America, where quite by accident (during lunch) heard about the difficulties the Royal Navy of Britain with equipping the pulley – blocks for tackle. A year to the Navy wanted 100 thousand blocks, each was done manually. Brunel proposed to the Admiralty the car, which sped up the process ten times. Thus began his career in Britain.

Brunel made a lot of inventions, but the businessman he turned out to be no: he was deep in debt and even sat in debtor's prison. It was then that he began a correspondence with the Emperor Alexander I about a possible departure to Russia (engineer proposed building a tunnel under the Neva). Once it became known that Britain could lose such a specialist, the government paid debts Brunel provided that and think he will forget about Russia.

The greatest project Brunel was the tunnel under the Thames is the world's first under a navigable river. In 1818 the engineer and his partner, Admiral sir Thomas Cochrane, patented brilliant invention of the tunneling shield. To 1843 under the bed of the Thames, a tunnel was built with a length of 396 meters, 11 meters wide and 6 meters high. Here was arranged lighting, paved roads. Carts on them, however, have never ridden, but pedestrians there were plenty: the construction was in Vogue, the year he is visited by two million people. Now the Thames Tunnel – part of the London underground.

The Museum is located in a small old building that was previously occupied by the steam engine, constantly pumping water from the tunnel. There are many exhibits on the works of sir Marc Brunel and his son, a brilliant engineer Usambara Brunel (that he created a gigantic steamship great Eastern, which laid the first transatlantic Telegraph cable). The Museum presents drawings made by Brunel senior, prints and photographs, models of bridges and other structures.

But the interesting thing here is the opportunity to visit the underground chamber of the tunnel. Fearless visitors enter through a tiny door, where we climb, bent. Now the descent is not too reliable with a mean staircase. Underground room is huge. The guide in the twilight tells about the life of sir Marc Brunel, who could build a tunnel under the Neva, – if England had not been as far-sighted.