SS Great Britain

Launched in 1843, she was the first ship to combine an iron hull with a screw propeller at ocean scale, and the largest vessel in the world at the time. She crossed the Atlantic, then carried emigrants to Australia for decades, was reduced to a coal hulk in the Falklands and finally scuttled there in 1937. In 1970 she was refloated, towed eight thousand miles on a pontoon and returned to the exact dry dock in Bristol where she had been built, arriving on the anniversary of her launch. The hull was corroding faster than it could be repaired, so the dock was sealed with a glass plate at the waterline and the space beneath filled with air held at around twenty per cent humidity, effectively a desert. Visitors walk under the glass, which is covered by a shallow film of water so it reads as a waterline from above, and stand at the keel.

What you actually see

• The dry-dock chamber - the hull below a glass waterline in desert-dry air.
• The iron hull and propeller - the 1843 combination that changed shipbuilding.
• The rebuilt decks - steerage, saloon and galley fitted as for the Australia run.
• The dockyard museum - the salvage and the eight-thousand-mile tow home.

When to go

Year-round; the ship is largely under cover. Tickets are valid for a year, so returning costs nothing. School holidays and weekends are busiest, and the rigging climb runs seasonally.

Honest expectations

The recreated interiors use figures, smells and sound effects, which some find effective and others find theme-park. Below-decks spaces are cramped with steep ladders. The dry dock is closed to visitors periodically for conservation work.

Nearby

Bristol's floating harbour and M Shed are along the waterfront; Clifton lies above.