Sometimes, humanity’s greatest achievements are pretty gross.

My partner and I were looking for a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon, and landed on the Brunel Museum—a small, out-of-the-way museum that’s south of the river in Rotherhithe. It’s focus is engineering/architecture, which I will admit isn’t my forte; it’s much easier for me to get excited about a piece of art then a piece of machinery.

But living in London, I forget sometimes how much history happened here. The Brunel Museum catalogues the journey that London’s workers engineers took to make the first-ever underwater tunnel. It’s called the Thames Tunnel, and although it’s no longer in use, it’s build was foundational to the way Londoners moved through the city for centuries.

What Does The Brunel Museum Cover?

Marc Brunel was a French-born engineer who lived in the 1700 and 1800s. He travelled the world, making a name for himself as an engineer—becoming the Chief Engineer of New York City in 1796, and a few years later moved to London to marry, and started working on the Thames Tunnel in 1825.

Back then, although bridges were common, there had never been an underground tunnel that could take people from one side of the river to another. The vision for this tunnel was that it could be available for everyone, not just the rich and well-connected; it sought to make the journey across the river easy and accessible, by foot and by horse.

But remember when I said it was gross? I wasn’t lying—not only did people die, but the work itself involved flooding of the Thames river, which was basically London’s latrine at that point in history. Although part of the vision for this tunnel was going to be throwing parties and hosting high society, the way it was built was literally tunnelling through ground that could be flooded by faeces and urine at any moment. Ew.

The museum happens in two parts; there’s the tunnel shaft that you can descend into, where a documentary of the history is played, highlighting the significance of the tunnel and its place in history. The second building shows an exhibit that explains the mechanics behind this major feat of architecture, as well as a timeline documenting the 20-year timeline of its build.

When I visited the tunnel shaft with my partner, I mentioned a term I’d be hearing recently in travel writing—ego death. It’s the idea that sometimes we can go to a place so breathtaking in its size or beauty that we temporarily lose the feeling that we’re important; that something in us recognises that we’re part of a bigger, brighter world.

I imagined the first people to set foot in the tunnel; what would they be thinking and feeling, stepping somewhere no one had gone before? Would they be wondering if the tunnel would fill and flood at any moment? Surely they would have felt the wonder of this tunnel all around them. After all, on opening day over 50,000 people paid a penny to walk through it; within the first 3 months of opening, that number had risen to over a million visitors. People flocked to this place, and it’s hard not to imagine that they’d be full of shock and awe.

My partner said that he felt that probably, the opposite of ego death might have occurred. He imagined that creating something that defied the belief that it couldn’t be done, and being the first in the world to make it happen, would have felt powerful—almost god-like.

The tunnel isn’t in use today, so it’s hard to get a feel what walking the tunnel would have been like. But it’s clear the impact it had on London architecture, and life in the 1800s. This museum is well worth a visit if you’re south of the river and looking for an experience where you get to step into a piece of London’s architectural history.

The Brunel Museum is open 10:30am–3:30pm, Friday–Monday. Tickets range from £1.50–£10, based on age, gift aid, and whether you’re a local. More information can be found on the Brunel Musem website.