In 1846, an Act of Parliament was passed authorising Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Woods and Forests to purchase the Red House Inn and some 200 acres of the surrounding land with a view to developing it into a park and to building an approach road from Sloane Square and a bridge over the river. Work could not start on the new Battersea Park until the Chelsea Waterworks Company, which occupied the site of today’s Grosvenor Canal, was obliged to move up river because of the 1852 law forbidding water to be taken from the Thames below Teddington. Until then, the company had filled its reservoirs in Hyde Park using elm trunks as pipes to take water from near where the River Westbourne flowed into the Thames. The Westbourne had become heavily polluted, and Tobias Smollett described the water taken from the Thames here as
impregnated with all the filth of London and Westminster – human excrement is the least offensive part of the concrete, which is composed of all the drugs, minerals and poisons used in mechanics and manufacture, enriched with the putrefying carcasses of beasts and men, and mixed with the scourings of all the washtubs, kennels and common sewers within the bills of mortality.18
Shortly afterwards, the Westbourne was culverted and made into a sewer. The new bridge and park were about to provide healthy exercise for the public and at the same time remove a cholera-bearing water supply and a place of immorality. The Commission for Improving the Metropolis had done its work well. Unfortunately, the Act had allowed for tolls to be charged even though the bridge was in public ownership.
In 1857, while excavating the river-bed for the foundations of the river-piers, workmen came across one of the most exciting Iron Age finds in Britain. The Battersea Shield was made of bronze, with highly embossed roundels containing 27 embedded circles of red enamel. It is of exquisite workmanship and belies the idea that our prehistoric ancestors were primitive philistines as regards art and craftsmanship. Today, it can be seen in the British Museum. Other objects of Ancient British and Roman origin were found in the same area and it was originally thought that there must have been a battle here between the Roman invaders and the British tribes. This seemed even more likely as this is one of the places where Julius Caesar may have crossed the Thames in 55 BC. The river must have been fordable at that time, as even in 1948 it was recorded in The Times that a Mr Joe Simmons walked across at low tide, and the level of the river would have been lower in Roman times. However, the Battersea Shield was never used in battle, nor was it made for real fighting. It is now thought that it was a ceremonial offering, as it was common to throw valuable items into the river to honour the gods.
Although the Act authorising Chelsea Bridge was passed in 1846, progress was slow and this caused much anger and derision. This is typified by a letter in The Times of 25 December 1856 signed by Pons Asinorum (Bridge of Asses). The writer contrasted the excellent efforts made by the Commissioner of Works, Sir Benjamin Hall, in the huge project of laying out the new Battersea Park with his dilatory approach to constructing the bridge. Sir Benjamin may have been distracted by his responsibilities for Big Ben, which was being built at the same time and is named after him.
Chelsea Bridge was of a conventional suspension type. It was designed by Thomas Page, who later designed the replacement Westminster Bridge. The cast-iron towers rose 97 feet above Thames High Water to support the wrought-iron suspension chains which carried the wrought-iron girders of the roadway. The ironwork was constructed in Edinburgh and erected in 1857. It was inscribed with the date of construction and the words ‘Gloria Deo in Excelsis’ on its 347-foot central span. Queen Victoria opened the bridge on 28 March 1858 and named it the Victoria Bridge. It was described by the Illustrated London News of 25 September 1858 as ‘a fairy structure, with its beautiful towers, gilded and painted to resemble light coloured bronze, and crowned with globular lamps, diffusing light all around’. The unpopular tolls were collected from picturesque octagonal lodges at either end of the bridge.
The opening of Old Chelsea Bridge in March 1858
Thomas Page (1803–77)
Thomas Page was born in London but educated on Teesside, where he trained for a career at sea. However, he decided to join an engineering works in Leeds, before entering the employment of the architect Edward Blore, for whom he worked as a draughtsman. The combination of engineering and architectural experience provided a firm basis for his future career as a bridge designer. His first major project was the construction of the Thames Tunnel, for which he was the engineering assistant to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The project took twenty years to complete, and during this time there were five inundations, resulting in considerable loss of life.
Because of his practical knowledge of the Thames river-bed, Page was asked to give evidence to the many select committees on Westminster Bridge, reporting on its state of repair. Partly as a result of his success at Chelsea Bridge, it was his design that was finally accepted in 1854 when the decision had been taken to rebuild Westminster Bridge. He later designed several bridges in England, including a bridge at Datchet over the upper Thames. In 1870, towards the end of his career, he proposed a submerged tube tunnel under the English Channel, predating the Channel Tunnel by over a century. This proposal was certainly far in advance of the currently available technology and fortunately was not pursued further.
On 4 July 1857, a massive demonstration was held by 6,000 people to protest against the tolls, which would stop the poorer classes enjoying the park. Shortly after the bridge was opened in the following year, the tolls were abolished on Sundays and statutory holidays, which were about the only times most people could visit the park. The park itself was designed by the architect James Pennethorne, based on the original idea of Thomas Cubitt, the developer of Belgravia. In order to build his elegant stuccoed housing in Belgravia, Cubitt had used the excavated spoil from St Katherine’s Docks to fill in the marshy land; and for the equally marshy land of Battersea Park, spoil was brought from the concurrent excavation of the massive Royal Victoria Dock. By 1865, 50,000 visitors a year came to enjoy the amenities of Battersea Park, where exotic plants such as palm trees grew in the open, and wholesome eateries and tennis courts had replaced the rowdy fairs of the Red House days.
Unlike the neighbouring Albert Bridge, the Victoria Bridge soon changed its name, and is now known as Chelsea Bridge. It seems that the name was changed because the authorities were concerned about its long-term safety and did not want its possible collapse to be associated with Queen Victoria. Like the Albert and Hammersmith suspension-type bridges, Chelsea Bridge suffered from continual problems of deterioration as well as being too narrow for motor traffic, which doubled from 6,000 per day in 1914 to 12,000 per day in 1929. Even its once-admired architectural style was challenged by Sir Reginald Blomfield, one-time president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and designer of Lambeth Bridge. In 1921, he wrote of Chelsea Bridge:
Its kiosques and gilt finials, its travesty of Gothic architecture in cast iron, its bad construction and its text of ‘Gloria Deo in Excelsis’ above the arch between the piers, are redolent of 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, the locus classicus of bad art, false enthusiasms and shams.19
Victoriana had by then gone out of fashion and was not to return to favour until well into the latter half of the century. The gilt finials on the tops of the towers had to be removed in 1922 when they were found to be unsafe. In 1926, the Royal Commission on Cross-river Traffic included Chelsea among the bridges that should be rebuilt.
In 1931, the LCC decided that the old bridge should be replaced by a new six-lane suspension bridge, costing £695,000. Unfortunately, this was a time of austerity, and the MOT overruled the LCC, specifying that only four lanes should be provided. In 1933, the LCC agreed to go ahead with a suspension bridge carrying four lanes at a cost of £365,000 provided that the MOT contributed 60 per cent of the cost. At the time, this must have seemed a bargain. Today, we may regret that the bridge was not built wider, since the cost of adding two extra lanes now would be considerably
more than £330,000, even allowing for inflation.
Chelsea Bridge of 1937, with its galleon lamp-posts
The overall design of the bridge was by the LCC architects G. Topham Forrest and E.P. Wheeler and was approved by the Royal Fine Art Commission. In contrast to the highly ornamental Victorian structure, the new Chelsea Bridge was distinguished by its restrained simplicity. The reason for this was said to be that the view was blocked by the nearby Grosvenor Railway Bridge and by the massive Battersea Power Station, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who was also to design the controversial replacement Waterloo Bridge two years later. The only embellishments are the lamp-posts, decorated with golden galleons, and the coats of arms of the LCC, Battersea, and Kensington and Chelsea boroughs, which are at each end of the bridge. The light bulbs which hang from the suspension chains and the carriageway make it a worthy companion to the neighbouring Albert Bridge at night-time.
Rendel, Palmer and Triton supervised the engineering of the bridge and the construction contract was performed by Messrs Holloway Bros (London) Ltd. Chelsea Bridge is built of steel with granite-faced river-piers. Its overall suspended length is 698 feet with a 322-foot central span and with 24 feet of headroom above Trinity High Water. It was specified that all the materials used for the construction of the bridge should be sourced from the British Empire. The wood paving which supported the carriageway was laid with Douglas fir from British Columbia in Canada, and so it was appropriate that it was opened by W.L. Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada. The ceremony took place on 7 May 1937, five days before the coronation of George VI, which the premier was due to attend.
The Second World War started two years after the bridge was opened. Since the Chelsea Barracks were situated on the north of the river near the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Royal Engineers constructed a temporary bridge in the vicinity in case any of the local bridges were destroyed. No enemy action took place in this area during the war, and the temporary bridge was removed in 1945. One battle, however, did take place on the bridge in 1971. This involved a clash of two rival motorcycle gangs, the Essex Angels and the Road Rats. About fifty men were present and of them twenty were arrested and sentenced to between one and twelve years in prison. As recorded in the Daily Telegraph of 3 March 1971, weapons used included iron bars, knives, motorcycle chains, shotguns and even one medieval ball and mace with spikes. The Battersea Shield would have offered no protection against this armoury.
CHAPTER 7
Vauxhall and Lambeth
Three bridges cross the Thames between Chelsea and Westminster. Grosvenor Railway Bridge is located only 200 yards to the east of Chelsea Bridge. It is a railway bridge, constructed originally in 1860 but considerably extended since then. Vauxhall Bridge is located about 1,000 yards downstream and crosses the river between the MI6 building on the south bank and Tate Britain on the north bank. It was opened in 1906, when it replaced the first iron bridge to be built over London’s river. Lambeth Bridge, which was built in the 1930s to replace a suspension bridge of 1862, is a further 500 yards downstream.
Grosvenor Railway Bridge
This bridge carries the services of today’s Southern, South West Trains and South Eastern Trains railway companies across the river to Victoria Station. The history of Victoria Station and the railway companies, both private and nationalised, that have used it is highly complex and cannot be covered here in detail. The initiative which resulted in bringing rail services to Victoria came from the West End and Crystal Palace Railway Company, which had been formed to take advantage of the expected increase in the number of people wanting to travel to Sydenham to visit the Crystal Palace. This wondrous glass structure had been moved there from Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition of 1851. Initially, the railway was only extended as far as a station called Pimlico, which was built on the south bank of the river and opened in 1858 on the same day as the first Chelsea Bridge.
The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) soon took over the service. It was clear that a far better service could be provided by taking trains across the river to nearer the West End rather than leaving them at Pimlico Station in a desolate and inaccessible area on the south bank. On 23 July 1858, the company obtained authorisation to build a railway bridge and to extend the line across the river to a site near the Grosvenor Canal, which had originally been constructed by the now-defunct Chelsea Waterworks Company. Since the LBSCR could not justify the investment on its own, it brought in two other companies, the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) and the Great Western Railway, which subscribed 50 per cent of the cost between them. The GWR used the broad-gauge lines measuring 7 feet ¼ inch, whereas all other companies had standardised on lines of 4 feet 8 ½ inches, so a mixed gauge had to be installed for the two railway tracks carried by the original bridge.
Grosvenor Railway Bridge, which was the first railway bridge to cross the Thames in the central London area, was designed by Sir John Fowler and consisted of four 175-foot wrought-iron spans. It was built remarkably quickly, as the first stone was laid on 9 June 1859 and the first train crossed to the new Victoria Station exactly one year later on 9 June 1860. Although sometimes called Victoria Bridge because it leads to Victoria Station, the bridge’s real name is Grosvenor, the family name of the Duke of Westminster, who owned the land on which the railway line and station were built and who had recently developed the Belgravia and Pimlico estates nearby.
Sir John Fowler (1817–98)
John Fowler was born in Sheffield and worked on several railway projects in the north of England before setting up his own practice in Westminster in 1844. He won the contract for building the Severn Valley Railway when he designed two 200-foot cast-iron bridges to span the River Severn. His first London project was the design of Victoria Station and the Grosvenor Railway Bridge for the LBSCR. A number of other London railway projects followed, during which he worked with Benjamin Baker, who became his partner in 1875. This partnership resulted in one of the greatest achievements of the Victorian Age – the construction of the Forth Railway Bridge. Fowler had already been knighted for services in Egypt and the Sudan, where his map surveys had been used by Kitchener during the relief of Khartoum. Following the success of the Forth Bridge project, he became a baronet, while Baker received a knighthood. They continued to work together and in 1890 they constructed the world’s first deep-level Underground line using a tunnelling machine invented by J.H. Greathead.
Many changes have occurred on the railway lines to Victoria since the Grosvenor Railway Bridge was first opened, resulting in much widening and reconstruction. The first major works on the bridge were undertaken in 1866. By this time the GWR no longer used the tracks and so the five new lines constructed at that time were single gauge. The necessary widening made the Grosvenor the widest railway bridge in the world at the time. In 1901, the bridge was again widened to take two extra tracks, making nine in all. In 1909, London’s first electric train crossed the Grosvenor Railway Bridge on the service from Victoria to London Bridge. The trains used a system of overhead current collection which was not replaced by the normal third-rail system until 1928.
By 1963, the bridge had deteriorated to such an extent that it had to be completely rebuilt. Fortunately, the old bridge had been constructed at several different times and was in effect three separate bridges joined together. This allowed the tracks of two of the bridges to remain open throughout the project. The bridge has been reconstructed as ten separate bridges joined together to carry ten railway tracks over four steel spans. The new bridge was completed in 1965. Today, it carries by far the largest number of trains across the river of any of London’s railway bridges for the wide variety of services to Victoria Station.
Grosvenor Railway Bridge with Battersea Power Station in the background
In the past, Victoria Station was the starting point for thousands of passengers who travelled to France and beyond on the boat trains. This was reflected by the inscription on the front of Victoria Station’s
entrance arch, ‘The Gateway to the Continent’, which has now been removed. The war memorial there also reminds us of the many trains that transported troops to France during the First World War. On a happier note, Victoria Station has seen the arrival of more royalty and visiting heads of state than any other of London’s termini. Today, the station is the second-busiest London terminus after Waterloo, and commuters, jammed together in crowded compartments, may not be aware of its glamorous past as the trains slow down at the approach via Grosvenor Railway Bridge.
Instead, there is usually time to admire the looming presence of the now-derelict Battersea Power Station at the southern approach to the bridge. The power station was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed Waterloo Bridge. It was opened in 1933, extended to its present size by the addition of two extra chimneys in 1953, and finally closed in 1983. It has been derelict since then. The site has now been purchased by Parkview International (London) PLC, which has obtained planning permission for an ambitious new mixed-use development, including a single-table restaurant on top of one of the chimneys. Passengers crossing Grosvenor Railway Bridge also have a fine view to the west of the adjacent Chelsea Bridge and, beyond that, Albert Bridge. Together, they present a magical picture, especially when lit up at night. To the east, Vauxhall Bridge is just out of sight, as it is located round the steep bend in the river at Vauxhall. On the north side of the bridge is the now mainly filled-in Grosvenor Canal, with the tall chimney of the Western Pumping Station.
The pumping station was built in 1875 as part of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s London sewage and drainage system, and is still in use today. During one especially heavy storm in the autumn of 2004, which overloaded the Victorian sewage pipes, it pumped tons of raw sewage into the Thames. According to a BBC news report, this resulted in a severe reduction of the level of oxygen in the water and caused the death of an estimated two million fish over a period of two days. A permanent solution, involving the construction of new intercepting sewage tunnels, would cost billions. Therefore Thames Water will continue the stopgap solution of using their ‘bubble boats’ to pump oxygen back into the river whenever storm pollution occurs. Despite its earthy origins, the pumping station is now a listed building and a fitting companion to the bridge, which, when originally built, predated it by 15 years.
Crossing the River: The History of London's Thames River Bridges From Richmond to the Tower Page 12
