Plants crossing continents at Brunel’s SS Great Britain

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From spring 2024, Brunel’s SS Great Britain – Bristol’s number one visitor attraction – will launch new living exhibits on the top deck of the ocean liner. Ferns, orchids and other specimens that were transported on board the ship will be planted in six replica Wardian cases.

From February 2024, new interpretation and public programming will reveal previously untold stories about the cargo and passengers who travelled on the SS Great Britain. Curators have scoured cargo manifests and passenger diaries, and collaborated with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the National Archives to build a picture of how plants were transported across the oceans.

Partnerships with gardeners and local community gardens has enabled staff to recreate the eye- catching Wardian cases and deliver workshops for both adults and children replicating the activities of travelling scientists and botanists.

Throughout the year, visitors can try their hand at flower pressing and Victorian crafts using pressed flowers and create their own cyanotypes – an early photography technique to record plant specimens. A new programme of talks and tours will focus on botanicals and their role in leisure, medicine and cosmetics, and explore the growth of botany as a science and industry in the 19th century.