At the start of the 19th century, there was a pressing need for a new land connection between the north and south banks of the Thames to link the expanding docks on each side of the river.

[3] Between 1805 and 1809, a group of Cornish miners, including Richard Trevithick, tried to dig a tunnel further upriver between Rotherhithe and Wapping/Limehouse, but failed because of the difficult conditions of the ground.

In 1814 he proposed to Emperor Alexander I of Russia a plan to build a tunnel under the river Neva in St Petersburg.

The Illustrated London News described how it worked: The mode in which this great excavation was accomplished was by means of a powerful apparatus termed a shield, consisting of twelve great frames, lying close to each other like as many volumes on the shelf of a book-case, and divided into three stages or stories, thus presenting 36 chambers of cells, each for one workman, and open to the rear, but closed in the front with moveable boards.

[5] The key innovation of the tunnelling shield was its support for the unlined ground in front and around it to reduce the risk of collapses.

However, many workers, including Brunel himself, soon fell ill from the poor conditions caused by filthy sewage-laden water seeping through from the river above.

When the resident engineer, John Armstrong, fell ill in April 1826, Marc's son Isambard Kingdom Brunel took over at the age of 20.

[4] Isambard Kingdom Brunel lowered a diving bell from a boat to repair the hole at the bottom of the river, throwing bags filled with clay into the breach in the tunnel's roof.

Six men died when the tunnel flooded again the following year, on 12 January 1828, just four days after a visit by Don Miguel, soon to become Regent of Portugal.

[5] In 1835, the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi parodied the construction of the Thames Tunnel in lines 126–129 of the poem "Palinodia al Marchese Gino Capponi".

That very mishap, When the Thames forced a gap, And made it fit haunt for an otter, Has proved that your scheme Is no catchpenny dream;— They can't say "'twill never hold water".

[10] When he saw it for himself in 1851, he pronounced himself "somewhat disappointed in it" but still left a vivid description of its interior, which was more like an underground marketplace than a transport artery: Amongst the blocks of buildings [in Wapping] that separate the street from the river, we notice an octagonal edifice of marble.

We enter by one of several great doors, and find ourselves in a rotunda of fifty feet diameter, and the floor laid in mosaic work of blue and white marble.

You halt a few moments on the first platform and listen to the notes of a huge organ that occupies a part of it, discoursing excellent music.

You resume your downward journey till you reach the next story, or marble platform, where you find other objects of curiosity to engage your attention whilst you stop to rest.

There may be fifty of them in all, and these are finished into fancy and toy shops in the richest manner – with polished marble counters, tapestry linings gilded shelves, and mirrors that make everything appear double.

Ladies, in fashionable dresses and with smiling faces, wait within and allow no gentleman to pass without giving him an opportunity to purchase some pretty thing to carry home as a remembrancer of the Thames Tunnel.

The Arches are lighted with gas burners, that make it as bright as the sun; and the avenues are always crowded with a moving throng of men, women and children, examining the structure of the Tunnel, or inspecting the fancy wares, toys, &c., displayed by the arch-looking girls of these arches [...] It is impossible to pass through without purchasing some curiosity.

[11] The American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne visited it a few years after Drew, and wrote in 1855 that the tunnel: [...]consisted of an arched corridor of apparently interminable length, gloomily lighted with jets of gas at regular intervals [...] There are people who spend their lives there, seldom or never, I presume, seeing any daylight, except perhaps a little in the morning.

The tunnel's generous headroom, resulting from the architects' original intention of accommodating horse-drawn carriages, also provided a sufficient loading gauge for trains.

The proposed repair method for the tunnel was to seal it against leaks by "shotcreting" it with concrete, obliterating its original appearance, causing a controversy that led to a bitter conflict between London Underground, who wished to complete the work as quickly and cheaply as possible, and architectural interests wishing to preserve the tunnel's appearance.

The architectural interests won, with the Grade II* listing of the tunnel on 24 March 1995, the day London Underground had scheduled the start of the long-term maintenance work.

Brunel's tunnelling shield was later refined, with James Henry Greathead playing a particularly important role in developing the technology.

This space, with walls blackened with smoke from steam trains, forms part of the museum and functions at times as a concert venue and occasional bar.