London Bridges Update

The weather’s been a bit hit and miss over the weekend, but this hasn’t adversely affected the progress I’ve been making with my London Bridges project. This weekend I completed four more – Fulham Railway, Wandsworth, Battersea Railway and Battersea.

I’m pleased with myself, not only because they’re halfway decent sketches all of them (in my opinion) but also because whereas last weekend I was absolutely champing at the bit following my forced lay off, this weekend I didn’t fancy it all that much. Each of the four bridges I’ve drawn on Saturday and Sunday have their own points of interest but I’m finding this section of the river just a bit of a slog.

You can read about all of the bridges on my dedicated page about the project – click on the link here. Here’s the bridges I did at the weekend

Fulham Railway Bridge

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the bridge with no name. Yes, we call it the Fulham Railway Bridge, but it has also been known as Putney Railway Bridge, and even The Iron Bridge. You can call it what you like since it doesn’t have any official name. I wouldn’t be surprised if Network Rail have given it a number instead. For me, I’ll keep calling it 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 carries the London Underground District line branch to Wimbledon.

Wandsworth Bridge

Well, what can we say about what is, to my mind, one of the least distinctive bridges to cross the Thames in Greater London? This is the second bridge on the site. The first was built in 1873, during one of the busier periods of bridge building in London. The expectation was that the Hammersmith and City Railway was going to build a terminus on the north bank of the Thames here. They didn’t, and this was one factor that contributed to the first bridge’s relative failure. There were others. The bridge was a lattice girder bridge and it looked a little like a railway bridge. Problems with the approach roads and with weight and speed restrictions on the bridge all meant that it never made enough money from tolls even to keep up with the costs of maintenance.

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 19^th 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

Battersea was where my Scottish Clark Grandfather Thomas married my Nan Dorothy and it’s also where my father George was born. He was very little when Tom and Dorothy moved the family to Acton. As far as I know that had nothing to do with Battersea Bridge, mind you.

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 even by the standards of the 1770s 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. Despite 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. Sticks and stones may break my bones but legal redress is bloody expensive.