Tower Bridge

Think of a London landmark.......

Got one? Okay, what was it? The Eye? The Gherkin? St. Pauls? Big Ben? (don't bother, pedants) I'm willing to wager many of you would have picked Tower Bridge, and not just because I've shoved a great big picture of it in your face. It is, truly, iconic; recognised the world over as a symbol not just of London but also the Victorians that built it. But why build it? The river Thames is the life blood of London but it is also a significant barrier. In the mid 19th century east London had become one of the largest ports in the world and there was a commensurate explosion in it's population; in fact, from 1831-1925 it had a higher population than any other city on Earth. All these people obviously needed to get around and at this point there was no crossing further west than London bridge; there was no Rotherhithe tunnel, Dartford tunnel or QEII bridge although the Blackwall tunnel wasn't far behind, it opened in 1897. This bottleneck led to massive congestion and journey times of several hours to cross the river. But it wasn't simply a matter of throwing up a standard issue bridge; this was one of the busiest ports in the world and the design had to allow for the passage of ships of all berths; with this in mind the City of London Corporation opened the design process to public competition.

Over 8 years fifty designs were submitted before one that fulfilled the stringent criteria was settled upon and the successful architect was one Horace Jones in collaboration with John Wolfe Barry. This was not without controversy however. Although there were submissions from established and proven engineers like Joseph Bazalgette, who designed the Victorian sewer system that I mentioned in a previous post, Jones' design was deemed the best. The only problem was that Jones himself was on the judging panel; so no conflict of interest there, then. Bazalgette didn't do too badly though, the Hammersmith bridge is one of his. Having muscled his way into the contract Jones actually died only one year into construction at which point George D. Stevenson took over, and that's probably a good thing. Jones' original design was merely to clad the structure in brick, it was Stevenson that decided to clad it in Cornish granite and Portland stone and add in the neo-Gothic elements that are very much a part of it's character to this day.

Right, let's break out some stats. 70,000 tons of concrete went into sinking the two piles beneath the towers, which themselves, combined with the walkways, needed 11,000 tons of steel to be completed. It's actually three bridges in one; two suspension bridges linked by a bascule bridge (bascule being French for see saw). Prior to 1976 the bascules were operated by steam power, the steam was collected in 6 accumulators so that there was always sufficient power at hand whenever a boat needed to get through. This was the most sophisticated design in the world at the time and meant that it only took about 60 seconds to raise the bascules to their maximum 86 degree elevation. The walkway across the top exists solely so that foot passengers could continue to cross the river when boats were passing but, due to lack of use, they were actually closed 16 years after opening. They were reopened again for tourists in 1982.

A panorama from the centre of the bridge. From left to right you have City Hall, the Shard, HMS Belfast, Tower 42, the Gherkin and the Tower of London. Click to en-awesomify.

The history of this bridge has not been without incident, no less than three planes have been flown between the bascules and the walkway; firstly, in 1912 pioneering avaitor Frank McLean flew down the Thames in a seaplane but, to the consternation of the local constabulary, he flew underneath London bridge and between the walkway and bascules of Tower Bridge. The second time was by an RAF pilot that was annoyed by a lack of celebration for the organisation's 50th birthday in 1968 and the last time was in 1973 when a somewhat unstable stockbroker pulled off the feat twice before flying on to the Lake District and killing himself as his plane crashed. And let's not forget the incident when a number 78 bus found itself rather near the gap as the bridge began to rise. The driver, Albert Gunton, took the split second decision to floor it and jump the small gap that had opened up.

My trips to the bridge have not been so eventful, I've never even seen it raised up, not for the lack of visiting though. Tower Bridge marks either the start or end point of possibly my favourite walk in all of London which basically consists of a loop along the north and south banks crossing at Tower Bridge and Westminster and I walk it regularly. The photos in this post are from two separate trips about two weeks apart. The daytime ones were taken on a random day off earlier in March and the night time ones were a couple of weeks earlier after a particularly crappy day at work; I was feeling rather stressed and could think of no better way to chill out than to go and visit one of my old buddies. I had wanted to get the sundial and fountain shots for a long time, unfortunately I was there at completely the wrong time of day so I was shooting into the sun. I need to go back in the early morning to get the best light for this direction.

I've also thrown in a picture of the Shard just because I've become slightly obsessed with that building. I can't wait for it to be completed and the viewing deck to be opened up to the public, the views will be spectacular - eleven months and counting. The last picture is clearly a long exposure but it's not the best as my tripod wasn't high enough to see over the railings so I had to do it handheld, which was less than ideal. Still, it leaves me something to aim for when I inevitably return, for return I will. This talismanic structure is, quite literally, one of my favourite places on the planet and I'm always excited to see it, like an old friend that I haven't seen or heard from for a year or two, but I know that time and distance won't have diminished our relationship. A lot of water may have flowed under the bridge but my love of this city grows stronger and for me there is no greater emblem of this than my old friend, the Victorian masterpiece, Tower Bridge.