After the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station is probably Brunel’s greatest achievement in Bristol and is extremely impressive in its grandeur. The station itself isn’t that big and doesn’t really have much of an interior- just a ticket buying area and a WH Smith. But when you are catching your train, you could be forgiven for thinking that you’d been transported back to the 1920s. Temple Meads has been lovingly preserved over the years and the stone facade is reminiscent of how it would have been in the Brunel years. Adjoining the station is the Commonwealth museum, which is unfortunately soon to shut.

This well-known station is the main City Centre station for Bristol, and one of the UK’s largest, handling over 6 million passengers a year. The distinctive name derives from a field – or mead – near a church known as the Temple.

The oldest part of the station is the original terminus of the famous Great Western Railway (GWR), built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened to Bath in 1840 and London in 1841. Fronted by an attractive Tudor-style building, the station had two parallel platforms beneath a hammer-beam roof. It is the oldest terminus station in the world, and appropriately Grade-I listed.

The terminating platforms were extended to join up with the new through station in 1871, but these were closed in 1965. The original station is now a conference and exhibition centre, also housing the the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum. The later extension is used as a car park.

In 1841, another Brunel-built railway, the Bristol and Exeter Railway, opened on an adjacent site, with a handsome stone terminus designed by S C Fripp in the Jacobean style. Trains initially ran to Bridgwater, and reached Exeter in 1844. Although the two termini were at right angles to each other, from the start there were through running lines on a sharp curve between them, and in 1871 a new through station was built to handle through trains. This was completed in 1878, and features the 500ft-long curved roof so familiar to to-day’s passengers, with a castle-like main building in the Tudor style and a distinctive, triangular forecourt. This is all listed at Grade I. The Bristol and Exeter terminus was closed when this new station was opened, and this attractive building is now used for offices.

The station today has 15 platforms, (all sharply curved) although there is no platform 14, (shades of Harry Potter!). Many of the platforms are, confusingly, numbered differently at either end (they are long enough to handle two trains at once – so make sure you go to the right end, or you could have a long walk). There is a spacious underground subway linking the platforms, with a number of shops and food outlets. The station has all the facilities you’d expect for its size, including disabled access, lost property, bicycle storage, newsagent, and it is open and staffed 24 hours a day.

The train service is incredibly extensive, with trains running direct to most parts of the UK, from Penzance to Dundee, and Brighton to West Wales. Services to London, Birmingham and Cardiff run every 30 minutes throughout the day, while those to Southampton/Portsmouth and to Exeter and Plymouth are hourly or better.

The only real gripe I have is that the ticket area is far too small. Although it has both a ticket office and self-service machines, there are still long queues during peak periods. The other downer is the station’s location: It’s a good 10-15 minute walk to the City Centre, although there are frequent bus services and a taxi rank immediately in front of the station.