Completed in , Tower Bridge is the most iconic bridge in London. This impressive feat of engineering is metres ft long, covered in 22, litres 5, gallons of paint and crossed by 40, people each day. Take a look behind the scenes at the famous bridge and discover areas such as the machinery room, which houses the hydraulic system that allows the bridge to rise for river traffic. Its driver, Albert Gunton, avoided catastrophe by accelerating rapidly and jumping the gap.
While much more subdued in design compared to its flashier neighbour, London Bridge is arguably just as famous. The first incarnation was built by the Romans, followed later by medieval bridges with houses on top, and a stone bridge commissioned by Henry II which lasted until But the story that Robert P. McCulloch thought that he was paying for the more iconic Tower Bridge is now thought to be an urban legend. Built in , Blackfriars Bridge gained notoriety in when Vatican bank chairman Robert Calvi was found dead on it.
The first bridge built here in was made up of nine granite arches and commemorated the victory of the British, the Dutch and the Prussians at the Battle of Waterloo in Now a rail bridge, the Hungerford Bridge was also initially designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as a footbridge. Cross the Thames at Westminster Bridge if you want to get an iconic picture of Big Ben on the north bank, or the London Eye to the south. The bridge also features details by the same architect as the Palace of Westminster , Charles Barry.
This red-and-yellow bridge designed by Sir Alexander Binnie links Pimlico on the north bank of the Thames with Vauxhall , a major south London interchange, on the south bank. In Sir Joseph Bazalgette incorporated design elements of a suspension bridge to stabilise the structure, and in the Greater London Council added two concrete piers to support the central section of the bridge.
The Illuminated River project is working on lighting up 14 central London bridges. It reaches from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge. Albert Bridge can be seen in lots of films and TV dramas.
Interesting Fact: Albert Bridge was a tollbooth for just six years before it went into public ownership. It is the only London bridge with surviving tollbooths still in place. Info: The current Chelsea Bridge was part of an initiative supported by the Ministry of Transport to stimulate employment for young men in the Battersea area. It was also an attempt to encourage more international trade with materials deliberately sourced from around the former Empire, including asphalt from Trinidad and wood from Canada.
The Grade II listed bridge was the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain. This was a replacement for the river crossing. That had been opened by Queen Victoria on her way to the newly constructed Battersea Park. But when the structural problems became apparent, the name was changed to Chelsea Bridge. In the s, the bridge was painted in a red and white colour scheme.
In , the bridge was repainted with a white with a red trim and blue along the balustrades. Interesting Fact: During the construction of the current Chelsea Bridge, excavators discovered Roman and Celtic artefacts and skeletons on the riverbed. Historians believe this was the site where Julius Caesar first crossed the Thames during the 54 BC invasion of Britain. Info: This multi-track railway bridge takes trains into Victoria station. It was actually called Victoria Railway Bridge when it opened in While it seems like an unassuming architectural structure, it is significant as it was the first crossing over The Thames for a railway.
The bridge was designed by engineer John Fowler with just two railway lines. It has been expanded three times in , and so it now carries ten tracks. Interestingly, these expansions have actually meant extra small bridges built next to it, so some say Grosvenor Bridge is really ten bridges. In , Grosvenor Bridge was said to be the busiest railway bridge in the world with trains crossing per day.
He was also chief engineer for the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland — the longest in the world at the time of its completion in Nearby: The iconic Battersea Power Station building can be seen from the bridge.
Interesting Fact: Spanning feet, this is the widest bridge on the river — almost double the width of Westminster Bridge. Info: This steel and granite arch bridge, designed by Sir Alexander Binnie, opened in The bridge we see today replaced the previous 19th-century toll bridge that was well used due to the popular Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
It is worth looking over the balustrades as the bridge is decorated with monumental bronze statues twice life-size! Vauxhall Bridge has been closed since 9 August for safety-critical repair work and is not expected to reopen until late November Nearby: The Tate Britain art gallery remains free although we currently need to book a ticket. It is granite-faced and has decorative obelisks at either end and with piers and abutments clad in Cornish granite.
Above each pier are the carved London County Council coats of arms, flanked by dolphins. The obelisks appear to be topped with pineapples, but there is debate other whether they are actually pinecones. The pinecone theory is because they are considered an ancient symbol of hospitality. The location was a popular horse and cart river crossing they went by ferry before hence Horseferry Road but the 19th-century bridge was too steep for heavily laden horse-drawn carts.
The bridge was used by pedestrians but closed in when considered unsafe. Interesting Fact: Lambeth Bridge is painted red to match the leather seats in the House of Lords, the part of the Palace of Westminster closest to the bridge.
It is an arch bridge with seven iron-ribbed elliptical spans; the most spans of any of the Thames bridges. It opened in and was designed by engineer Thomas Page. Sir Charles Barry, the architect responsible for rebuilding the Palace of Westminster after a fire in , was taken on as an architectural consultant so that the bridge would blend in with his new Houses of Parliament hence the Gothic revival detailing. Westminster Bridge was painted green in to match the seats in the House of Commons, the part of the Palace of Westminster closest to the bridge.
There was fierce opposition for a long time to building this second bridge over The Thames there was only London Bridge at the time. The old bridge had fifteen semi-circular arches in Portland and Purbeck stone.
It was handsome and inspired many artists, including Canaletto and Claude Monet. In it inspired Wordsworth to write his poem Upon Westminster Bridge about the view, not the bridge. Interesting Fact: Did the architect know? But visit Westminster Bridge around 1 pm, and you may get to see the rude shadows on the pavement created by the trefoil cut-outs.
Photo below. Info: Hungerford Bridge is a steel truss rail bridge that we are supposed to call Charing Cross Bridge but no-one does. It is flanked by the Golden Jubilee Bridges: two cable-stayed pedestrian bridges that were added in It opened in as a footbridge to connect Hungerford Market on the north bank to a steamer pier on the south bank. In the bridge was purchased by the South Eastern Railway Company who rebuilt it as a railway bridge. The chains from the bridge were reused by Brunel for his Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol.
The suspension bridge was replaced in with the bridge we have today. Designed by Sir John Hawkshaw, it has nine spans of wrought iron lattice girders. There were pedestrian walkways either side, but one was removed when the bridge was widened for more trains. The two new 15 ft wide Golden Jubilee footbridges were completed in During the building of the Golden Jubilee Bridges, there were unexploded World War II bombs found in the riverbed, so some of the foundations had to be dug by hand.
They also had to be careful of the Bakerloo Line as the tunnel was just a few feet away. These bridges are next to the Southbank Centre.
It was one of the longest suspension bridges at the time 1,ft but was demolished, ironically, within 15 years to make way for a railway bridge. At 1, feet long and 80 feet wide it is the longest bridge in London and was the first to incorporate electric lights. It was the only bridge in London to suffer multiple hits by German bombers, but it was finally finished in It replaced the bridge that was designed by John Rennie the Elder who also designed the London Bridge and it was built by his sons.
It was going to be called the Strand Bridge as it was built by the Strand Bridge Company, but the name was changed to commemorate the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at the Battle of Waterloo in By the beginning of the 19th century, the population of London was already over a million.
The wear and tear on the bridge meant it was closed in to be demolished and replaced. It is the only Iron Age horned helmet to be found in all of Europe. Joseph had also designed the first Blackfriars Rail Bridge — now demolished except for its impressive red cast-iron Doric columns, which can still be seen in the river.
This was the first bridge to have five elliptical wrought-iron arches so as not to create cross-currents and disrupt river traffic. It has granite piers topped with ornately carved pulpits as a reminder of the ancient Blackfriars monastery. It is said to be the tidal turning point — the boundary between seawater and saltwater in the Thames — so is decorated to the east downstream with images of seabirds and to the west upstream with freshwater birds.
The bridge also marks the boundary of the historic City of London with its southern landing guarded by a statue of a silver dragon.
The bridge was widened in and is now the widest bridge over the Thames in London. It had 19th-century repairs but needed replacing. Nearby: Tate Modern is on the south side of the river.
Interesting Fact: Rennie Garden , a small pocket park at the south end of the bridge is actually owned by the City of the London which is on the north side of the bridge. As mentioned above, you can still see the red support columns in the river. Interesting Fact: This is not just a railway bridge but also a railway station as Blackfriars is accessed at both ends, and you board the trains on the bridge. Dampers were added, and it reopened in February Sounds brilliant.
Image: Wikipedia. Presumably some actual Tories get the train from their southern constituencies to Waterloo? Perhaps everyone was too concerned by the law stating that any damage to the bridge carried a penalty of being transported to America for seven years. Good riddance. Good origin story: the first Putney Bridge was supposedly at least partly built at the spiteful insistence of prime minister Robert Walpole because he once needed to cross the river when the ferryman was too busy getting wankered in the pub.
Debatable points for having a famous jazz pub at one end. A horse cools off before Lambeth Bridge in Mary Poppins is a much weirder film than it is given credit for. The original tunnel under the Thames — and the first under any river apart from one which may or may not have been built in Babylon, 4, years ago — it was designed as a foot tunnel: a business model which failed because most people found the walk too alarming, what with the pre-electric lighting and the strong possibility of being mugged.
It was converted into a railway tunnel in the midth century, which is a shame because a mad old Victorian foot tunnel would be a nice way to cross the Thames. But the Overground is also pretty useful, I guess. Although probably not any more since the fictional version of MI6 got all blown up. Unlikely as it might sound, this tiny and not massively useful ferry service it only runs in the summer, for a start is one of the ten oldest companies in the UK.
The Visit Thames website informs us that the two lockkeepers have recently rescued a duckling named Davina. Gets the job done. If bridges could buy pints, Waterloo would always stand you one. These days the southern end contains the British Film Institute, but those of a certain age will always bemoan the loss of the Museum of the Moving Image, where you could lie on a blue rug and pretend to be Superman. The Golden Jubilee Bridges: less famous, albeit less wobbly, cousins of the Millennium bridge, but the busiest foot crossings in London: a core of the London experience is running late trying to leg it across the bridge dodging tourists and tat-sellers.
Along with Barnes and Fulham, this is one of only three railway bridges to deign to incorporate a pedestrian bit. Although see number 9.
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