So, the last time we met I’d completed all of the bridges working downstream from Hampton Court to Waterloo Bridge. Waterloo Bridge was the first I did during the weekend. Since recovering from tendonitis I’ve managed to draw four bridges on the weekends. Now, here’s a confession. I made this sketch of Blackfriars Bridge back in about 2020, but it just seemed to fit.
So, Blackfriars Bridge. You know, if you take the time to
think a little about the names of various places you can learn a bit about
their history. If we take a very simple one to start with, the name Hammersmith
might lead you to think that it was originally a district where blacksmiths
made tools. You’d be right to think so, although by the time my 3x great
grandparents were living there it was nicknamed Laundry Island. I digress. So
the area of Blackfriars derives from a Dominican Priory built there in the
1270s. The Dominican order of monks were nicknamed the Black Friars from the
black robes they wore. This compares with the Grey Friars – the Franciscans and
the White Friars - the Carmelites. The Black Friars were pretty much the
Stormtroopers of the medieval Catholic Church.The priory had gone a long time before the first
Blackfriars Bridge was built. Yes, Blackfriars was one of the bridges built in
the couple of decades following the original Westminster Bridge. Begun in 1760
it was opened 9 years later. This was a bridge of 9 arches made of Portland
stone. Judging by paintings and engravings of the first bridge it was a rather
attractive Italianate structure. Officially it was named the William Pitt
Bridge after the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder, whose reputation was
at its zenith in 1760 following the successful conclusion of the Seven Years
War, but it was the informal name based on the district on the North bank that
was served by the bridge that caught hold.
What happened to the bridge afterwards is a fairly familiar
story. While the bridge may have looked elegant and classy, it’s construction
was not made to stand the test of time. Any bridge built in the 18th century
faced a number of challenges. Britain was in the middle of the period known as
the ‘little ice age’ during which the winters were more severe than they are
now. During the life of the first Blackfriars Bridge the Thames froze over so
badly in 1789 and 1814 that Frost Fairs were recorded as being held on the
Thames. The 1814 frost, and the disastrous effects of its thawing sounded the
death knell for Old London Bridge. Immediately following the opening of John
Rennie’s London Bridge, old London Bridge with its 19 narrow arches was
demolished. This had the effect of removing a huge obstacle to the river, which
increased its flow and the scouring effect of the current on bridge
foundations. This effect was noticeable on Blackfriars’ Bridge where extensive
repair work was necessary from 1833 for the rest of the decade. The bridge was
finally demolished in 1860.
Building of the replacement bridge was hampered when the
company that won the contract had issues finding stable foundations, which led
to financial issues which bankrupted their main supplier. It wasn’t until 1869
that the current five span wrought iron arched bridge was opened by Queen
Victoria.
Blackfriars Bridge took on a certain amount of notoriety
when the body of Italian banker Roberto Calvi was found hanging from one of its
arches in 1982. Rumours and unconfirmed stories have since surfaced suggesting
that Calvi was murdered by the Italian Mafia, to whom he allegedly owed a lot
of money. An Italian court case in 2007 failed to convict men who were accused
of carrying out the murder due to lack of evidence.
This gets a little complicated. Because, you see, there
were actually two Blackfriars Railway Bridges, one of which, the one in the
picture, remains. The older of the two was the one which was demolished. It was
opened in 1864 by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. When the bridge was
demolished the huge abutments on either side were preserved in place and these
bear the arms of the company, They’re something to look out for any time you go
to see the Thames bridges for yourself. After the company was subsumed into the
Southern Railway in the 1920s, cross channel traffic was allocated to other
routes. By the time of demolition the bridge was just too weak to bear the
weight of modern trains. The columns that carried the bridge were left in place
and can still be seen alongside the second Blackfriars Railway Bridge.
The second bridge opened in 1886 and was originally called
the St. Paul’s railway bridge. This too was built for the London, Chatham and
Dover Railway. It was designed by William Mills of the railway company, John
Wolfe Barry who would later design Tower Bridge and Henry Marc Brunel
(Isambard’s nipper). It was made with five arches constructed from wrought
iron. The original design called for four tracks but this was increased to
seven. The bridge served St. Paul’s station. This was renamed Blackfriars which
became the name of the bridge from then onwards.
Following the demolition of the other Blackfriars Railway
Bridge, the columns were partially used to support the extension of the
platforms of Blackfriars Station across the bridge. The roofs of the platforms
were installed with solar panels. It makes Blackfriars Railway Bridge the only
‘solar bridge’ in the UK, and the longest of only three in the whole world.
At the time of writing we’re a year short of a quarter of a
century passing since the turn of the Millennium, and it seems strange to think
of how big a deal it seemed at the time. Remember the fears over the Y2K bug?
Well, whether you’re old enough to remember or not, anything that came about in
or around the year 2000 was always going to be doomed to bear the word
Millennium somewhere in its name.
The competition to design the new footbridge took place in
1996. The winning design from Arup Group, Foster and partners and Sir Anthony
Caro took its inspiration from a blade of light. And what an innovative design
it is. When you look at the bridge you may be surprised to learn that it is a
suspension bridge. A suspension bridge? But where are the cables? Ah, that’s
one of the clever things. They are below the deck which means that the view
from the deck itself is brilliantly unobstructed. Although possibly the finest
view is looking across the bridge itself from the southern end, where the
majestic bulk of St. Paul’s Cathedral in all its glory seems to beckon you
forward. All of which makes the Millennium Bridge a structure which looks far
better to my mind from on the deck of the bridge, than from the river, where I
find that the blocky concrete supports are a little clunky looking, and the
thin metal profile of the deck just a little underwhelming.
Okay, let’s get the W word on the table. That word is
wobble. The Millennium Bridge was opened on 10h June 2000 and on that day many
people walking across the bridge reported that they could feel it wobbling. I
don’t want to get too technical (because I can’t) but basically suspension
bridges, far from being absolutely rigid, have a capacity to sway slightly. The
Millenium Bridge originally had a tendency to slightly sway from side to side,
as opposed to a traditional suspension bridge having a tendency to move up and
down slightly. The sway caused people unconsciously to start walking in time to
the bridge’s swaying which had the effect of increasing the sway. This is
related to, although not the same as the vertical sway that caused the Tacoma
Narrows bridge to shake itself to pieces in a very famous piece of film.
The engineers at Arup solved the issue through the fitting
of fluid dampers, which I guess are like shock absorbers to the bridge, and in
more than two decades since there haven’t been any reports of any issues with
wobble. I’ve walked across it myself many times, and although I was more than
up for a bit of a wobble I didn’t feel anything. Still, give a dog a bad name.
It’s still not unusual to hear it referred to as the Wobbly Bridge.
It wasn’t until 1811 that Parliament passed the bill for
the building of the first Southwark Bridge, and work didn’t start until 1813.
The bridge was designed by John Rennie who also had Waterloo Bridge on the go
at the same time and would design the replacement for Old London Bridge. This
first Southwark Bridge had three cast iron spans supported by granite piers. In
Charles Dickens’ “Little Dorrit” there are several references to the Iron
Bridge across the river and I had to do a little bit of research to find out
that this was a reference to the original Southwark Bridge. The main purpose of
the bridge was to relieve traffic upon Old London Bridge. Contemporary reports
showed that it was pretty unsuccessful at attracting traffic away from Old
London Bridge. There were a number of reasons why. Firstly there were tolls.
Who was going to pay to use Southwark Bridge when Blackfriars and old London
Bridge were free? Then the bridge itself was pretty narrow. The approach roads
were steep and on the Southwark side very poorly made up.
Predictably enough the bridge company went bankrupt and the
bridge was acquired by the Bridge House Estates which operated a number of
bridges including London Bridge – we’ll talk more about Bridge House Estates
when we get to London Bridge. The tolls were abolished in 1864. The bridge
limped on into the 20th century. To be fair judging by
photographs showing the bridge it was not a bad looking thing at all. Still it
was living on borrowed time and the new bridge, the current bridge, was
constructed between 1913 and 1921.
Southwark Bridge has five steel arches supported by granite
river piers. On top of the piers on each side of the bridge are alcoves for
pedestrians to sit and take a break. This echoes a feature of the last phase of
old London Bridge, which I’ll say a little more about when I get there. All in
all the current Southwark Bridge is a perfectly decent river crossing, however
it does hold the unenviable record of being the least used of all of the Thames
bridges in London.
The last railway bridge downstream in London is this,
Cannon Street Railway Bridge. Cannon Street station was built to give the South
Eastern Railway a terminus within the City of London. This necessitated the
building of a bridge to carry the railway. Designed by Sir John Hawkshaw and
opened in 1866. It had five spans supported by cast iron pillars. It was
originally called the Alexandra Bridge, the Prince of Wales having only
recently married Alexandra of Denmark. It had two footpaths that were removed
in the 1890s so that the bridge could be made wider.
The bridge was damaged during world war II and had to be
partially rebuilt. Then in the 1980s British railways carried out an extensive
renovation and removed much of the ornamentation on the superstructure.
Thankfully they left the two original brick towers facing onto the waterfront
on the City side. There it is, not a lot more that I think I can say about it.
Here I think I should declare an interest. A couple of
decades ago I read Patricia Pierce’s excellent book about Old London Bridge and
thought to myself – I bet that would make a good Mastermind subject -. In 2007
it did. I used it as my specialist subject in the grand final. So once I start
going on about old London Bridge I find I really easy to get carried away with
my subject. I will do my best to try to keep this relatively brief.
Nobody knows exactly how many wooden bridges were built
here across the Thames after the Romans built the first around 50AD. During the
reign of King Ethelred II (nicknamed the Unready) the story goes that one of
his allies pulled down the then bridge to thwart the Danish armies. This was
commemorated in a poem by skaldic poet Ottar Svarte, and some people believe
that this poem, the first lines of which translate as
‘London Bridge is broken down,
Gold is won and bright renown’ – is actually the origin of
the nursery rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down.
The decision to rebuild London Bridge in stone was taken
during the reign of King Henry II and work began in 1176, under the direction
of local parish priest Peter de Colechurch. It was completed in the reign of
King John in 1209. Although we don’t have any images or written descriptions of
the bridge at the time it’s most likely that it had buildings on the
superstructure right from the start. Buildings on the bridge were demolished or
destroyed and rebuilt for over 500 years until the extensive remodelling from
1758 - 1760 when all the buildings were removed. There was a fortified
gateway at the southern end, where severed heads were displayed after the
drawbridge gate was demolished. The drawbridge itself could be raised twice a
day to let ships through, although it ceased to function and was made solid in
the remodelling at the start of the fifteenth century. The most notable feature
of the bridge until the 16th century was the Chapel of St. Thomas a Becket.
Becket was the patron saint of the City of London and had actually been a
parishioner of Peter de Colechurch. The chapel stood on the thickest pier, just
over halfway across from the Southwark side. During the Tudor reformation Henry
VIII had the chapel demolished. During the reign of Henry’s daughter Elizabeth
I a partially prefabricated timber house, probably manufactured in the
Netherlands, had large parts of it ferried to the bridge, where it was erected.
It was called Nonesuch House and it stood in increasingly dilapidated condition
until all the buildings were removed from the bridge.
A number of interesting events punctuate the bridge’s
history. The current London Bridge and several other Thames bridges are cared
for by the Bridge House estates. This is a charitable organisation and dates
back more than 900 years, predating old London Bridge itself. There have been
times when the old bridge was taken out of their care. Notably King Edward I
gave over the care of the bridge to his mother, Eleanor of Provence – who
is believed to be the my fair lady of the nursery rhyme. She proved expert at
gathering the tolls, but not so good at using them on the maintenance of the
bridge. During her stewardship part of the bridge collapsed. Maintenance of the
bridge was a problem throughout its 600+ year history. It had 19 narrow arches,
which greatly reduced the width of the river in real terms and meant each pier
was under huge hydraulic pressure.
If you were coming from the Continent the only way to get
to Westminster or the City of London was by taking a water ferry, or by
crossing London Bridge. So it was the scene of a great deal of pageantry, and
not a little bloodshed. In 1381 the leaders of the Peasants Revolt threatened
to set fire to the bridge if the citizens did not lower the drawbridge to let
the ‘peasant army’ cross. Later on in Richard II’s reign it was also the scene
of a magnificent joust between the champions of England and Scotland. (Scotland
won 1-0)
The Chapel of Thomas Becket was often used as the starting
point for pilgrimages to his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral and the chapel was
rebuilt in about 1400 with money from the charitable bequest of the real Lord
Mayor Dick Whittington. During Jack Cade’s rebellion in the reign of Henry VI
the rebels were defeated in battle on London Bridge itself.
I’ve already mentioned the nineteen narrow arches. In the
mid 18th century remodelling when all of the houses were remove
from the bridge the two central arches were combined to make one ‘great arch’.
This did not prevent the Thames from freezing over during particularly cold
winters and in 1814 it caused the last of London’s Frost Fairs. When the thaw
came the large chunks of ice shooting through the arches caused a lot of damage
to the bridge and within a few years it was accepted that the bridge would have
to be replaced. Demolition didn’t actually start until after the replacement
bridge opened slightly downstream in August 1831.
There are remnants of Old London Bridge you can see if you
know where to find them. In the 18th century remodelling, some
of the piers were topped with curved alcoves. When his Dad was imprisoned in
the Marshalsea Prison young Charles Dickens used to go and sit in these to
watch the world go past him. You can find one of these in the grounds of nearby
Guys’ Hospital and another 2 in Victoria Park in Hackney. The Museum of London
has smaller remains on display too. The church of St. Magnus the Martyr on the
Northern bank of the Thames was actually the start of the roadway onto the
bridge and the churchyard has several blocks which were part of the bridge
which were uncovered during work on a nearby building in the 1930s.
Right, that’s the old bridge, which is the longest lasting
and for me the most interesting bridge ever to span the Thames. Now we come to
Rennie’s Bridge. Rennie’s design was one of five that were considered,
eventually winning approval. The foundation stone was laid in 1825. Rennie died
four years earlier but work on the bridge of five stone arches was carried out
under the direction of his son, another John Rennie. For the first few decades
after its 1831 opening many people expressed admiration for the bridge and the
way it dealt with traffic far better than the old bridge had ever done. Still,
it was probably unrealistic to expect that John Rennie, designing the bridge in
the second decade of the 19th century could possibly foresee
the exponential increase in traffic over the second half of the 19th century.
By the end of the century there was a desperate need for the capacity of the
bridge to be increased and it was widened. Within a few years surveys revealed
that the bridge was subsiding by an inch every eight years, with the east side
subsiding more severely than the west side.
Hence the decision to replace the bridge. It was a man
called Ivan Luckin who proposed the idea of selling the bridge. Despite initial
scepticism from the City Council the bridge was put on the market in 1968. On
the 18th April it was bought by US oilman Robert P. McCullough
who envisioned it could be the centrepiece of his Lake Havasu resort.
There is an urban myth that Robert McCullough thought he
was actually buying Tower Bridge. There is a word for this. It’s cobblers. Mr.
McCullough was fully aware of what he was buying. During negotiations there was
even a scale model of London Bridge on the table in front of him. So the stones
of the bridge were numbered, dismantled, shipped off to Lake Havasu and rebuilt
there. Well, sort of. Some of the stones were certainly numbered and shipped
off. Not until after they had been shaved so that they could be fitted as
facing stones over the new concrete frame which had been built to hold them. A
lot of stone was sold off and a lot was just let in an abandoned and flooded
quarry. A very large number of souvenirs were made from discarded stones – I
myself have a small block, an ash tray and a desk set.
The current bridge was built while Rennie’s was being
demolished. They would work on for example the upstream side while the
downstream side would continue to be open to traffic, then vice versa when that
side as finished. Finally it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973.
So, the current bridge consists of three spans of
prestressed concrete box girders. Nope, me neither. From the river side, well,
it looks alright if you like concrete, I suppose. Its bland. On anything except
the sunniest day its sides look grey and miserable. No, in order to get the
best view of the bridge you need to get up on the walkways.
Wide, isn’t it? It carries 6 lanes of traffic across the
river. I’ve seen a number of websites claiming that Wandsworth Bridge is
London’s busiest but I wouldn’t be surprised if London Bridge gives it a fair
old run for its metaphorical money. London Bridge at the time I’m writing this
is only fifty one years old, and I reckon it will need to be at least double
that age before we can really start to decide whether it has stood the test of
time. But based on what we’ve seen since it opened, I’d say it scores highly
for functionality. For aesthetics? Nah, not so much.
Through the second half of the 19th century
the development of the East End led to increasing demand for a new bridge
downstream of London Bridge. The opening of Rennie’s London Bridge in 1831 led
to a huge increase in traffic, so much so that London Bridge would need to be
widened in 1901, and the need for a new bridge to relieve the congestion became
more pressing throughout the 1870s. An 1876 report recommended the building of
either a new bridge or a new tunnel to the east of London Bridge. More than
fifty designs were submitted, but in 8 years all that the committee of the
Bridge House Estates had managed to do was to decide that the bridge would only
be one of three designs of 2 types – either one of two designs of swing bridge,
or a bascule bridge. A bascule bridge was decided upon, and an act of
Parliament passed to the effect in 1885.
The Act imposed some stringent conditions on the design of
the bridge. Boiling these down to essentials, the bridge would have to ensure
that it was no obstacle to tall ships passing into the Pool of London to load
and unload at the wharves on the Southwark side of the river. Also, the design
of the Bridge had to match the architecture of the Tower of London. There was
also a stipulation that the construction of the bridge had to be completed
within four years. This necessitated a further two Acts of Parliament to extend
the timescale of the construction.
Horace Jones as architect and Sir John Wolfe Barry as
engineer designed the bridge in a way that fulfilled the conditions of the Act
of Parliament. Jones died before the completion and Barry took over as
architect as well as engineer. In Jones’ original design the façade was meant
to be red brick but the changes to a more ornate Victorian Gothic style were
thought to be more in keeping with the Tower of London.
Tower Bridge was a target for enemy bombing raids during
the Second World War and although it was fortunate enough to escape a
devastating direct hit it did suffer damage on a number of occasions.
There are few more archetypal London experiences for which
there is no charge than standing by the river either a little upstream or
downstream of the bridge and watching the bridge being raised and lowered. If
you’re visiting London you have a pretty decent chance of being able to do so
because the bridge currently is raised about a 1000 times a year. Which is
considerably less than the first 12 months of its operation, when it was raised
over 6000 times. To be fair at that time the Port of London was probably the
busiest in the world so there was a lot more traffic on the river.
Coming back to the untrue urban myth about Robert P.
McCullough believing he was buying Tower Bridge, which we discussed along with
London Bridge, the origin of this possibly lies in the fact that many people
other than Londoners, do actually think that Tower Bridge is London Bridge. I
can sort of understand this. London Bridge has the history, the famous name,
the song. But it really doesn’t look the business. Tower Bridge looks the part.
So, not London Bridge, no. But London’s Bridge, yes, that I can get on board
with.
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So that’s the challenge completed. Looking back now I have
drawn every station on the London Underground, Overground and DLR. I have drawn
every property, station and utility on the London Monopoly Board. Now I’ve
drawn all of the bridges across the Thames in London. Whatever will the next
challenge be? Answers on a postcard, please, since I have no idea. Watch this
space.
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