Clif­ton sus­pen­sion bridge across the gorge of the River Avon near Bris­tol, Eng­land. De­si­gned by I. K. Bru­nel in 1830, but not com­ple­ted until 1864, five years after his death. The chain used came from an ear­lier bridge he had de­si­gned, the Hun­ger­ford Bridge in Lon­don (1845). The main span is 702 ft, the road being 240 ft above the river. It is in­te­res­ting to note that Tel­ford ad­vi­sed Bru­nel against this de­sign on ac­count of its windy lo­ca­tion, and the wind pro­blems he (Tel­ford) had with the Menai Straits Bridge.

View at road level along the axis of the bridge, sho­w­ing the ma­sonry tower and the back-stay chains. As the towers are built on the cliff face, there are no side spans, hence the back-stay ca­bles are strai­ght ex­cept for the small sag due to self weight.

Close-up of bridge sho­w­ing de­tails of the chains, sus­pen­der rods, and stif­fe­ning gir­der.