In the previous week I completed ten more bridges. I am delighted to say that my arm continued to improve – or at least, not to get any worse, and this week I added eleven more bridges to the total. Without further ado, here they are:-
Fulham Railway Bridge
So, what have we got? Well, it’s a relatively unassuming
lattice girder bridge built for the LSWR in 1889. You know from my comments
about Kew Railway Bridge that I have something of a fondness for the
unashamedly industrial appearance of this kind of railway bridge. Nowadays it
carried the London Underground District line branch to Wimbledon.
Wandsworth Bridge
The bridge couldn’t carry trams or buses and replacing it
was first mooted in the 1920s. Replacing Putney Bridge was deemed more urgent,
and so it wasn’t until 1935 that the Ministry of Transport agreed to the
replacement. Demolition of the old bridge began in 1937, meaning it lasted a
little more than 60 years.
The current bridge is a cantilever steel bridge that
crosses the river in three spans. The outbreak of World War II caused a
shortage of steel and meant that the bridge could not be completed and opened
until September of 1940. I want to be kind about the bridge, or at the very
least, I don’t want to be mean about it. It isn’t ugly – it’s a bit too
nondescript to be ugly. But, and I want to stress this, it does the job which
is all the more praiseworthy considering that it is one of the busiest bridges
in London, carrying an estimated 50,000 vehicles a day.
Battersea Railway Bridge
It’s easy to dismiss Battersea Railway Bridge as just another railway bridge across the Thames. However, it’s really not without an interesting history.
For one thing, it’s not just one of the oldest railway
bridges across the river, it’s one of the oldest bridges across the river full
stop. Yes, a fair number of bridges were built across the Thames before this
one was built in 1863, but most of them have long since been replaced. This is
still substantially the same bridge. Today the bridge carries the West London
line of the London Overground. Originally it linked railways in South London
with the termini at Paddington and Euston. The link with Paddington meant that
the bridge originally carried broad gauge lines as well as standard gauge.
Trust me, that’s a big thing to a railway buff.
While we’re on the subject of railways, the bridge was used
exclusively for freight throughout the 19th century and the first
passenger train didn’t cross it until 1904. The structure carries the railway
across five wrought iron arches and is grade II* listed.
Battersea Bridge
The current bridge is the second Battersea Bridge. The
first was opened in 1771 and came to prove a popular subject with artists,
despite the fact that it really wasn’t terribly good. It was planned as a stone
bridge but there were problems with raising the investment to build it so a
wooden bridge was built. If you look at paintings of the bridge, or old
photographs it was certainly an eye catching structure. It had 19 spans and
must surely have posed a challenge to river traffic. Old London Bridge itself had
19 spans, and this had the effect of creating a weir effect at certain times,
so much so that at different times of the day passing downstream could be like
shooting the rapids. For all that the bridge was not demolished until 1885.
So, the current Battersea Bridge was designed by our old
hero, Sir Joseph Bazalgette. From a distance it doesn’t necessarily look that
much to write home about. That’s possibly partly due to the predominantly dark
green colour scheme, I would think. When you get closer though there’s enough
decoration while the five cast iron arches give a feeling of strength and
permanence.
Coming back to paintings of the old bridge, old Battersea
Bridge was featured in Whistler’s “Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling
Rocket’. The critic and know-all John Ruskin in his review accused him of
‘flinging a pot of paint in he public’s face.” Whistler sued, and was awarded
damages of one farthing, which virtually ruined him.
Albert Bridge
Of the bridges I’ve just mentioned I think that the Albert
Bridge is the prettiest. I did think always think that the Albert Bridge was
designed by Joseph Bazalgette, but no. It was actually designed by Rowland
Mason Ordish in 1873. It’s an interesting design too. At first glance it looks
like another suspension bridge, but it wasn’t. It was built according to the
Ordish-Lefeuvre system, as a cable stayed bridge. Look, I’m not an expert on
these things, but I do know that the design proved to be a bit unstable and
this is where the Bazalgette connection comes in. It was Bazalgette who
incorporated elements of suspension bridge design into it.
You can argue that the success this brought was limited.
The bridge develop a reputation for instability, and like the first Wandsworth
bridge it never reaped enough revenue from tolls to pay for maintenance and up
keep of the bridge. Speaking of toll booths, these still exist on the bridge,
in fact I’ve painted one of them once. They have signs warning troops to break
step when crossing it.
One of the things that might strike you when you cross the
bridge is how narrow the roadway is. So in practical terms, this is not a great
success as a bridge, and although it is still open to traffic there are very
strict restrictions on its use and it is one of London’s least used bridges.
However on a clear evening, when it’s all lit up with LEDs, it’s undeniably
very, very pretty.
One more trivia fact, Albert Bridge is one of only two bridges in the central London area which are the fist bridge to have bee built there. The other, you ask? Why, Tower Bridge of course!
Chelsea Bridge
Here’s a question for you. Why was the Albert Bridge named after Prince Albert? Well, just downstream was the original Chelsea Bridge and this one was officially called the Victoria Bridge. There you go.
The purpose of the Victoria Bridge/ Chelsea Bridge 1 was to
facilitate the development of the new Battersea Park area. It was originally
planned in the 1840s. However the work on the Chelsea Embankment caused over a
decade of delays and the bridge was not actually opened until 1858. Photographs
of this first Chelsea Bridge show it as a relatively stately looking suspension
bridge, just a little reminiscent of the current Hammersmith Bridge,
Like a significant number of 18th and 19th
century Thames Bridges this was a toll bridge – which was a bit of a cheek
considering that it was built with public money. Like the majority of those
toll bridges, it was not a commercial success. Which goes to prove the old adage
– if you build it they will come, but they won’t pay to cross over it -. Tolls
were finally abolished in 1879. There’s an interesting story as to why the
bridge was renamed Chelsea Bridge. Basically the structure of the bridge was
unsound and the authorities didn’t want the bridge being associated with the
Queen in case it collapsed.
Even if it had been sound by the 1920s it was obvious that
it could not cope with the amount of traffic wanting to use it which was only
likely to increase. The bridge was finally demolished and replaced by the
current bridge which opened in 1937. The current structure was apparently the
first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain – which I’m told means that it
is anchored to its own deck rather than to the ground. Fills one with
confidence.
It has always struck me as something of a plain jane of a
bridge. It’s clean and unfussy but lacks adornment when compared with the other
bridges on this section of the river. I don’t know if this is what was meant,
but the pillars carrying the cables above the deck have always looked a bit
like Egyptian obelisks to me.
Grosvenor Railway Bridge
Still, the Grosvenor Railway Bridge was the first to be
built in central London and here Sir John was on much firmer ground should you
pardon the metaphor. His bridge originally carried just 2 tracks across five
arches. Five years later it was widened to add a further four tracks which
would accommodate increased traffic from the London, Brighton and South Coast
Railway and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. In 1907 the bridge was
widened again to accommodate a further track for the LB&SCR.
Between 1967 and 1968 the bridge was completely renovated
and modernised, and little remains of the materials Fowler originally used
apart from the cores of the original piers. Within a year of the completion of
this work Grosvenor Bridge was claimed to be the world’s busiest railway
bridge, carrying in excess of 1000 trains each day.
Today it’s a perfectly pleasant, unfussy railway bridge,
even if it does lack a little impact.
Vauxhall Bridge
I think I may have crossed Kew and Richmond bridges more
times than I’ve crossed any other. However there’s no doubt in my mind which
bridge I’ve cycled across more times than any other. That’s Vauxhall Bridge,
hands down.
This is the second Vauxhall Bridge. The first had a
complicated genesis. The purpose of the bridge was to open the South Bank of
the Thames for development. There was opposition to the building of any bridge
here from the proprietors of the original Battersea Bridge. In the end the
Vauxhall Bridge Company was obliged to compensate them for any loss of revenue.
The original design was rejected. Then the great John Rennie – don’t worry,
we’ll get to him later – had a design accepted, but the developers ran out of
money to build it. So Rennie submitted a cheaper design. This was rejected.
Samuel Bentham submitted a design. Construction began but it wasn’t long before
concern was expressed about the construction of the piers, and a report by
engineer James Walker led to the design being abandoned. So Walker was
appointed to design and build a bridge of 9 cast iron arches with stone piers,
which would be the first cast iron bridge over the Thames. So, finally the
bridge opened in 1816. It was named the Regent Bridge after the future George
IV, but pretty soon afterwards was renamed Vauxhall Bridge.
The developers believed that the areas either side of the
bridge would become well to do suburbs, so they set high tolls at the start.
Instead the area became home to poor factory workers in the Doulton factory,
and also to the Millbank Penitentiary. Despite this though revenue did improve
from the tolls, until the Metropolitan Board of Works (the Government
department at the time responsible for public infrastructure works) had an Act
of Parliament passed enabling it to buy all of the bridges across the Thames
from Hammersmith Bridge to Waterloo Bridge and abolish the tolls. Vauxhall
Bridge was bought in 1879 and tolls were lifted. Not long after this, though, a
report into the bridge established it was in poor condition and in 1895 an Act
of Parliament was passed allowing the bridge to be replaced.
The original design for the new bridge by London County
Council chief engineer Sir Alexander Binnie was for a steel bridge. Asked to
think again he came up with a five span concrete bridge to be faced with
granite. After the piers had been built it was discovered that the clay of the
riverbed could not support the weight of a concrete bridge, and so the long
suffering Binnie and civil engineer Maurice Fitzmaurice designed a steel
superstructure to fit the piers. During the construction many influential people
commented with dismay about the very functional design and so sculptors
Frederick Pomeroy and Alfred Drury were commissioned to make large,
personificational statues which would eventually be attached to the sides of
the bridge. Upstream there are Pomeroy’s Agriculture, Architecture, Engineering
and Pottery, while Drury’s Science, Fine Arts, Local Government and Education
adorn the downstream side.
Vauxhall Bridge was the first bridge to carry trams across
the river. Sadly the tracks were ripped up when trams ceased operating in
London in 1951. There’s been a lot of development in the last 40 years
particularly on the south bank here, and in 2008 the bridge was give a grade
II* listing.
Lambeth Bridge
Red is used prominently in the colour scheme of Lambeth
Bridge. Why do you think that should be? Well it’s all to do with the Houses of
Parliament, which lie on the north bank of the Thames between Lambeth Bridge
and Westminster Bridge. To the west, on the Lambeth Bridge end is the House of
Lords, and the benches within the Lords chamber are red. At the east end, the
Westminster Bridge end, is the House of Commons, with its green benches. Which
is why green is the main colour of Westminster Bridge.
Back to Lambeth Bridge, then. On the north bank there’s a
road called Horseferry Road on the approach to Lambeth bridge, which shows that
this was originally the site of a horse drawn ferry. Remember, there was no
other bridge than London Bridge in central London until the 18th
century. The first Lambeth Bridge wasn’t opened until 1862, and it was a plain
and austere suspension bridge. Yes, it was a toll bridge and no, the tolls
didn’t raise the expected revenue. This is a story we’ve heard before. The LCC bought
it in 1879 and abolished the tolls. The Metropolitan Board of Works found that
the bridge – less than two decades old at this point – was badly corroded, and
vehicles were banned from it in 1910.
Parliamentary approval for a replacement road bridge was
granted in the 1920s, but a flood in the area before work had begun delayed the
building of the bridge. Finally the current five span steel arch bridge opened
in 1932.
Westminster Bridge
Now, as pleasant as the current Westminster Bridge is, I
doubt that many people would be moved to describe it as the most beautiful
thing on Earth. Yet its predecessor, whose shortcomings we shall discuss very
shortly, moved the great William Wordsworth to describe it with the words
“Earth has not anything to show more fair.” And this, mind you, from a man
famous for his association with the Lake District.
A bridge at Westminster was first proposed during the
Restoration period, but the opposition of the Corporation of London and the
waterman’s lobby proved a tough obstacle to shift. It wasn’t until after
London’s second bridge was built at Putney that Parliament approved the
building of a bridge at Westminster, and even then it took 11 years to build,
finally opening in 1750. Wordsworth wrote his poem about the bridge in 1802,
but even then it was being undermined by the design flaws that would see it
suffering from incurable subsidence by the time it reached its centenary. Like
London Bridge the original Westminster Bridge consisted of many narrow arches,
and the narrowness of the arches contributed to the current scouring the river
bed which led to the subsidence.
The bridge was then demolished and the current Westminster
Bridge was built to replace it. It was opened in 1862. The bridge has 7 cast
iron arches, and much of the ornamentation was designed by Charles Barry, which
was the architect of the Palace of Westminster which was in the middle of the
long process of being built at the time. The current Westminster Bridge might
not be the most beautiful on the river, although it’s perfectly inoffensive.
However, it has to be said that if you’re standing on the Southern end of the
bridge the view to the northern end, taking in the Palace of Westminster and in
particular the Elizabeth Tower – commonly known as Big Ben – is one of the
finest on any bridge across the Thames.
Trying to be a little less damning of the original bridge,
it did at least have the effect of opening the door to development of more
bridges in London. Prior to the building of Westminster bridge, only 1 new
bridge, Putney, had been built in the previous 500 years. In less than 30 years
four more had been built.
Currently, Westminster Bridge is the oldest road bridge
across the Thames in central London, albeit that Richmond Bridge is many
decades older.
Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges
Do you count these as one bridge or as separate bridges?
Well, they are listed as separate structures, even though the two Golden
Jubilee footbridges share the same pier as the Hungerford Railway Bridge. I’m
depicting them as one for a simpler reason than that. It’s very difficult to do
a picture of one without the others. So I’m not.
Right, here’s a question for you. If you asked people the
question, can you name a Victorian Engineer?, whose would be the name that name
up more than any other? Chances are it would be Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunel
was the chief supervising engineer of the Thames Tunnel from Wapping to
Rotherhithe that had been designed by his father Marc Brunel. He didn’t design
or build any of the current bridges across the Thames in London, however he did
design and build the original Hungerford Bridge.
This was a suspension bridge opened in 1845 carrying railway lines across the river from Hungerford market to what would become the Waterloo area. In 1859 the bridge was bought by the South Eastern Railway, to extend the line into the new Charing Cross station. The decision was made to replace the bridge. It’s a bit of a shame since Brunel’s bridge was actually rather picturesque. Contemporary pictures show that a pair of rather fetching Italianate red brick towers supported the central span. These were demolished but the new bridge did use the buttresses of Brunel’s bridge. You might well have seen or even passed over a bridge held up by the chains from Brunel’s Hungerford Bridge since these were reused in Brunel’s Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. (Yes, I know it's increasingly contentious to call it Brunel's Clifton Bridge. He died before it was finished, and the engineers who did finish the bridge made important changes to Brunel's design. However, that doesn't affect Hungerford Bridge.)
The new bridge, which is the current bridge, was a
nine-span wrought iron steel truss bridge, made of lattice girders. You have to
look quite closely to see the details from some angles, mind you. The bridge
was originally built with walkways on either side, but the western one was
removed when the railway bridge was widened. In 1996 a competition was held to
design new footbridges either side of the railway bridge, since the lone
walkway had become dilapidated and was felt to be too narrow.
Not claims you could make about the new bridges which are
both four metres wide. I have to say that the large white slanting pylons from
which the deck is suspended seem to enter into a rather unsettling dialogue
with the Victorian appearance of the railway bridge sandwiched between them,
but on a sunny day I find the bridges very pleasant to walk across. As for the
name, well with them opening in 2002, the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden
Jubilee, it’s a bit of a no-brainer.
Waterloo Bridge
Trivia question – which bridge across the Thames has a
Hollywood movie named after it? Waterloo Bridge, and it had two films named
after it, the original 1930 film, and the 1940 remake, which starred Vivien
Leigh, who’d only just received her first Oscar for Gone With the Wind. Which
is pretty appropriate considering that the original bridge was gone with the
wind by this time, while it would be two years before the new bridge opened
partially, and five years until it opened completely.
Let’s talk about the old bridge for a while, though. My
favourite bridge ever to cross the Thames is Old London Bridge. We’ll come to
my favourite existing bridge in the fullness of time. Still, I do also have a
soft spot for old Waterloo Bridge. This was originally designed by the Scottish
engineer John Rennie as the Strand Bridge, for the obvious reason it could be
accessed from The Strand. Before it was complete the Battle of Waterloo had
been fought and won and the bridge was renamed Waterloo Bridge. John Rennie
would go on to design the new London Bridge which would be opened in 1831, and
there were certainly similarities in the design of the two bridges. Like
people, some bridges are naturally more photogenic than others, or should I
say, more picturesque. Waterloo Bridge scored highly on this scale. Constable
painted its opening, and Claude Monet painted it no fewer than 41times.
The same scour from the river flow which had earlier done
for the first Westminster Bridge was found to be damaging the foundations of
Waterloo Bridge by the mid-1880s. Urgent remedial work had to be carried out
during the 1920s, but this was only ever a temporary solution and in the 1930s
the London County Council made the decision to demolish it and replace it,
despite some opposition from early proponents of architectural conservation.
Right, what links both Waterloo Bridge and the traditional
British red telephone box? Yes, both were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.
Scott freely admitted that he was an architect and not an engineer, which is
perhaps why you get to see so little of the actual engineering of the bridge
from the outside. Look, I’ve put on record that I don’t like looking at large
amounts of concrete on the exterior of a structure. However the first time I really
looked at Waterloo Bridge I was impressed by how modern it looked. To me at
that time in the mid 70s it looked every bit as modern as the recently opened
London Bridge. Well, you live and learn, I suppose. For some time after it was
opened it was known as the Ladies’ Bridge because of the large numbers of women
who worked on its construction during the Second World War. Waterloo Bridge
was, I believe, the only bridge across the Thames in Central London to suffer
damage from an air strike during the war.
Since World War II Waterloo Bridge has had a fairly
uneventful history, with the exception of the Georgy Markov incident. Georgy
Markov was a Bulgarian dissident who worked for the BBC world service, and a
vocal critic of the Soviet bloc. In 1978 he walked across Waterloo Bridge, and
when he had crossed it he was injected with a poisoned micro pellet, probably
by the tip of an umbrella. He died four days later.
Coming back to the original bridge when it was demolished
blocks of granite from it were sent to Commonwealth countries across the world.
The silver grey beech piles were also cut up and used to make thousands of boxes, many of
which were sold during the Festival of Britain. I have several of these boxes
in my own small collection.
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