Mr Tual wrote to tell me that he recently visited the Aquarium on the South coast of England in Brighton, which apparently is the oldest aquarium in the world!  Opened in 1874, and very much built in the Victorian style of the time, there’s still a goodly amount of Victorian style to be had (a nice image here from an old postcard).  Interestingly, they seem to be caught between playing the Steampunk side up, and playing it down – with the above very Verne-esque submarine found outside and a newly constructed underwater tunnel in wood panels and brass, all very quietly there but not advertised much at all.

Mr Tual explains that there’s a rivetted and patinaed ante-chamber deep within that just oozes Steampunk that leads to the main aquarium, complete with sharks and brass numbering.  Moving downwards you get more detail until finally you enter the tunnel that is done up so convincingly that you fancy that the glass may crack and drown you all, were it not for the thick brass holding it in place. Alas, flash photography is quite unkind on the place, and Mr Tual was a little too excited to get as many photographs as he perhaps wished later, but it sounds like a very pleasant place to visit – with both history, aquatic education and a little bit of newly added Steampunk flavour to boot!  It’s definitely down on my list of places I might endeavour to visit, thank you, Mr Tual!