Architect: James Paine. Engineer: Kenton Couse. Contractor: Thomas Kerr
Richmond Footbridge, Lock and Weir (1894)
300 feet long, 28 feet wide
Twin high-level footbridges pass over a lock capable of handling six river barges and a weir controlled by lifting sluice gates. Originally hand cranked, the sluice gates are now raised by electric power.
Engineer: F.G.M. Stoney. Contractors: Ransomes and Rapier
Richmond Railway Bridge (1848)
300 feet long
Three 100-foot steel girders are supported on stone-faced land arches and two stone-faced river-piers. The original cast-iron girders were replaced by steel in 1907.
Engineer: Joseph Locke
Southwark Bridge (1921)
Replaced John Rennie’s three-span iron bridge of 1819.
800 feet long, 55 feet wide
Five steel arches are supported by four stone river-piers, which are topped by pierced lunettes for decoration.
Architect: Ernest George. Engineer: Mott, Hay and Anderson. Contractor: Sir William Arrol & Co.
Tower Bridge (1894)
880 feet long, 60 feet wide
Central drawbridge with two bascules of 1,100 tons each, originally raised by steam-driven hydraulic power, today by electricity. Two 300-foot steel towers clad in granite and Portland stone support the bascules as well as a 200-foot-high walkway which is cantilevered out from the towers. Suspension chains support the road spans from the riverbanks to the two towers.
Architect: Horace Jones. Engineer: John Wolfe Barry. Contractors: Sir William Arrol & Co. and William Armstrong
Twickenham Bridge (1933)
280 feet long, 70 feet wide
Three reinforced-concrete arches are supported on concrete river-piers, with bronze plated permanent hinges at the springings and centres to allow adjustments due to changes in temperature.
Architect: Maxwell Ayrton. Engineer: Alfred Dryland. Contractor: Aubrey Wilson Ltd
Vauxhall Bridge (1906)
Replaced James Walker’s bridge of 1816, which was the first iron bridge to be built over the Thames in London.
759 feet long, 80 feet wide
The appearance of the structure of five steel arches is enlivened by the heroic-sized statues which stand in front of each of the river-piers.
Architect: W.E. Riley. Engineers: Alexander Binnie and Maurice Fitzmaurice. Contractor: Petwick Bros
Wandsworth Bridge (1940)
Replaced J.H. Tolmé’s five wrought-iron arches of 1873.
619 feet long, 60 feet wide
Three steel cantilever spans are supported by granite-faced river-piers in a typically plain LCC design.
Architect: E.P. Wheeler. Engineer: T. Pierson Frank. Contractor: Messrs Holloway Bros (London) Ltd
Waterloo Bridge (1945)
Replaced John Rennie’s 1817 bridge of nine semi-elliptical granite arches, which was once described by Canova as ‘the noblest bridge in the world’.
1,200 feet long, 80 feet wide
Five spans of reinforced concrete clad in Portland stone cross the river between the modernist concrete structures of the South Bank Centre and the classical stone structure of Somerset House on the north bank. Externally, the spans appear as elegantly flat arches, but the underlying structure consists of steel box-girders.
Architect: Giles Gilbert Scott. Engineer: Rendel, Palmer and Triton. Contractor: Sir William Arrol & Co.
Westminster Bridge (1862)
Replaced Labelye’s beautiful but unsafe stone bridge of 1750.
748 feet long, 85 feet wide
Seven elliptical cast- and wrought-iron arches supported by granite piers cross the river between the former County Hall and the Houses of Parliament. Gothic shields in the spandrels and ornamental shields emblazoned with the arms of England and Westminster provide decoration appropriate to the site.
Architect: Charles Barry. Engineer: Thomas Page. Contractor: Thomas Page
Table of daily vehicle crossings over London’s Thames bridges
Bridge Crossings/24 hours A road
Richmond Bridge 34,484 A306
Twickenham Bridge 46,188* A219
Kew Bridge 41,561* A217
Chiswick Bridge 39,710* A3220
Hammersmith Bridge 24,203 A3031
Putney Bridge 58,687 A3216
Wandsworth Bridge 53,299 A202
Battersea Bridge 26,041 A3202
Albert Bridge 19,821 A23
Chelsea Bridge 29,375 A301
Vauxhall Bridge 50,533 A201
Lambeth Bridge 25,187 A300
Westminster Bridge 32,673 A3
Waterloo Bridge 41,960 A100
Blackfriars Bridge 38,982 A201
Southwark Bridge 12,465 n/a
London Bridge 35,345 A10
Tower Bridge 40,024 A100
The daily numbers of vehicle crossings were measured in 2004 after the introduction of the congestion charge, except for the asterisked figures.
Figures supplied by Transport for London.
APPENDIX 2
Bridge Basics
The design and construction of a bridge are highly technical exercises. This book can give only a general description of some of the basic concepts relating to the different kinds of bridges and the materials used to construct them. In summary, there are six main types of bridge design to be found on the Thames. These are beam, cantilever, arch, suspension, cable stay and bascule. The situation is often more complex, when several of these types are combined in a single bridge, as for example in Tower Bridge.
Having decided on what type of structure to design, the engineer needs to consider the choice of materials. Wood, stone, cast and wrought iron, steel, concrete and reinforced concrete have all been used in various combinations. These basic design choices affect the most important aspects of a bridge, including the width of the navigable spans, the road width, the load it can carry, its ability to withstand the impact of weather and tide, and its aesthetic appearance.
The most basic type of bridge is the beam. In its simplest form, this would consist of a log of wood thrown over a stream and supported by the banks on either side. The Thames is too wide to allow for such a simple structure, and the spans of its beam bridges are supported by several river-piers, as well as piers on the riverbanks. All the Thames railway bridges are designed as beams, usually with steel lattice girders crossing the river supported by iron or steel piers.
The cantilever often looks like a beam, but its weight is not supported at both ends by lying across two piers, as is the case with a beam. In fact, one end is held down by a bracket or heavy weight at a supporting pier or abutment while the other end is built out from there without the need for any further support. Two cantilevers opposite one another can be joined together to form the simplest type of cantilever bridge, but in practice several cantilever spans are needed to cross the Thames. The walkway at the top of Tower Bridge is an example of a simple cantilever construction, even though it looks like a single beam.
The main problem with the beam and cantilever before the age of iron and steel was that stone does not have enough tensile strength to allow for long spans. This means that the tensile, or stretching, effect on the underside of a long stone beam causes it to break under the combined weight of its own load and the load of the traffic passing over. On the other hand, stone does have great compressive strength. This means that it can withstand considerable inward or downward pressure. The arch was used by the Romans to build stone bridges that have lasted for two millennia.
The arch is built by constructing a wooden framework, or centering, in the shape of an arch between two piers. Then cut stones, known as voussoirs, are laid across the centering and the keystone is inserted in the middle of them. The wooden framework is then removed, and the weight of the stones and any loads on top of them simply presses down towards the ground, thus utilising the considerable compressive strength of stone and avoiding its tensile weakness. Early stone arche
d bridges over the Thames, such as Richmond Bridge, used semicircular arches in which the direction of the pressure is mainly downwards. This limited the width of the spans. Later bridges, such as Mylne’s Blackfriars Bridge, used elliptical arches with wider spans. Here the pressure is outwards as well as downwards, and this requires strong buttresses at the abutments to control the outward thrust.
A suspension bridge consists of a roadway which is supported from above by vertical cables. The cables in turn hang from long curved chains, or catenaries, which are supported on tall river-towers and tied down in abutments on the riverbanks. This design provides a wide navigable river span and looks dramatic. The disadvantage lies in the complex calculations needed to ensure that the many and various tensile and compressive forces are catered for, to ensure that traffic loads and high winds can be withstood.
A cable-stayed bridge such as the Albert Bridge looks at first sight like a suspension bridge. In fact, the roadway is supported by straight cables hanging directly from the river-towers without any catenaries.
A bascule bridge such as Tower Bridge consists of two cantilevers counterbalanced by heavy weights. The cantilevers can be moved up and down mechanically like a drawbridge to allow shipping to pass underneath. The operation is described in more detail in Chapter 15 on Tower Bridge (see the diagram here).
Regarding the choice of materials, the characteristics of stone and its ability to tolerate compression but not tension are described above. Some early bridges, such as Fulham Bridge, were made of wooden beams. Wood has rather more tensile strength than stone – it can bend as it is stretched under a load. However, in every other way it is less durable, and it ceased to be used after the middle of the eighteenth century.
As for iron, two main sorts are used in bridges: cast iron, which has a high carbon content and is relatively brittle; and wrought iron, which contains hardly any carbon and is more malleable. The first iron bridge, at Coalbrookdale over the River Severn, was built of cast iron using an arched construction. Since the main stress with an arch is downwards compression, this bridge has stood the test of time. Cast iron has also been successfully used for the river-piers of several Thames bridges, where again compressive strength is required. However, because it is extremely brittle, cast-iron beams such as lattice girders tend to break as they are stretched under heavy loads over time. Being more malleable, wrought iron has high tensile strength and has been used for lattice girders, catenaries and cables, which all need to withstand the pressure of stretching.
The invention of mass-produced, high-quality steel made the engineer’s job much easier, as steel combines the compressive strength of cast iron with the tensile strength of wrought iron. Steel therefore replaced iron in almost all bridges constructed from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. Concrete on its own, like stone, has poor tensile strength and is only used for abutments, piers and foundations. It is combined with steel to form reinforced concrete and pre-stressed concrete, and this allows much wider and flatter spans to be constructed than would be possible with ordinary concrete or with stone.
Notes
Chapter 1 Richmond and Twickenham
1. Held in Richmond Libraries Local Studies Collection
2. Richard Crisp, Richmond and its Inhabitants from Olden Times (Sampson, Low and Marston, 1866)
3. James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Richard Clay & Son, 1894)
Chapter 2 Kew
4. E.B. Chancellor, An Account of the Bridges across the Thames at Kew (J.H. Broad, 1903)
5. Horace Walpole, Journal of the reign of King George the Third, from the year 1771 to 1783 (London, 1859)
6. Charlotte Papendiek, Court and private life in the time of Queen Charlotte (Bentley & Son, 1887)
7. E.B. Chancellor, An Account of the Bridges across the Thames at Kew, op. cit.
Chapter 3 Chiswick and Barnes
8. A.W. Winch, Bits about Barnes (London, 1895)
Chapter 4 Hammersmith
9. Thomas Faulkner, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hammersmith (T. Faulkner, 1839)
10. Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain (D. Browne, 1762)
Chapter 5 Putney and Wandsworth
11. Thomas Faulkner, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hammersmith, op. cit.
12. Archibald Chasmore, The Old Bridge (T.C. Davidson, 1875)
13. Sir Joseph W. Bazalgette, An account of the metropolitan bridges over the Thames (Metropolitan Board of Works, 1880)
14. George Dewe, Fulham Bridge 1729–1886 (Fulham and Hammersmith Historical Society, 1986)
Chapter 6 Battersea and Chelsea
15. Minutes of Battersea Bridge Company 1776–93 (held in Wandsworth Borough Local History Library)
16. George Bryan, Chelsea in the Olden and Present Times (George Bryan, 1869)
17. Ceremonial pamphlet on the opening of Chelsea Bridge (LCC, 1937)
18. Tobias Smollett, The expedition of Humphry Clinker (J. Walker & Co., 1815)
19. Quoted in Aston Webb (ed.), London of the Future (T. Fisher Unwin, 1921)
Chapter 7 Vauxhall and Lambeth
20. Charles Hollis, Proposed Improvements in Lambeth and Westminster (William Clowes, 1829)
21. Thomas Allen, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Lambeth (J. Allen, 1827)
Chapter 8 Westminster
22. Quoted in M.E.C. Walcott, Westminster (J. Masters, 1849)
23. Journal of the Common Council (5 October 1664, held in Guidhall Library)
24. Charles Labelye, A Description of Westminster Bridge (W. Strahan, 1751)
25. Ibid.
Chapter 9 Charing Cross
26. George Gater, The Survey of London (LCC, 1937)
Chapter 10 Waterloo
27. Quoted in E.B. Chancellor, The Annals of the Strand (Chapman & Hall, 1912)
28. Thomas Pennant, Some Account of London (R. Faulder, 1791)
29. Quoted in Aston Webb (ed.), London of the Future, op. cit.
30. Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers (John Murray, 1874)
31. John Timbs, The Romance of London (Frederick Warne & Co., 1928)
32. Mark Searle, Turnpikes and Toll-Bars (Hutchinson & Co., 1930)
33. The Report of the Royal Commission on Cross-river Traffic in London (HMSO, 1926)
34. Quoted in Wallace Rayburn, Bridge across the Atlantic (Harrap, 1972)
Chapter 11 Blackfriars
35. John Stow, A Survey of London (Clarendon Press, 1908)
36. ‘A Description of a City Shower’, quoted in John Ashton, The fleet, its river, prison, and marriages (T. Fisher Unwin, 1888)
37. Publicus, Observations on Bridge Building (J. Townsend, 1760)
38. James Boswell, Life of Johnson, op. cit.
39. Anon., The City Inscription on Pitt-Bridge, Blackfriars (London, 1760)
40. J. Paterson, A Plan to Raise £300,000 (London, 1767)
41. Quoted in A.E. Richardson, Robert Mylne, Architect and Engineer (B.T. Batsford, 1955)
42. W. Thornbury and E. Walford, Old and New London (Cassell & Co., 1897)
43. William Lucey, The cost of new Blackfriars Bridge (Waterlow & Sons, 1862)
44. Adrian Gray, The London, Chatham & Dover Railway (Meresborough Books, 1984)
Chapter 12 Millennium Bridge
45. Deyan Sudjic, Blade of Light (Penguin Press, 2001)
Chapter 13 Southwark and Cannon Street
46. John Rennie, Autobiography (E.F.N. Spon, 1875)
47. A Subscriber, Considerations on the proposed Southwark Bridge (Sherwood, Neely & Jones, 1813)
48. John Stow, A Survey of London, op. cit.
49. Alan Jackson, London’s Termini (David & Charles, 1985)
Chapter 14 London Bridge
50. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: The Olaf Sagas, trans. Samuel Laing (J.M. Dent, 1915)
51. John Stow, Survey of London, op. cit.
52. Gordon Home, Old London Bridge (Lane, 1931)
53. Patric
ia Pierce, Old London Bridge (Headline, 2001)
54. Thomas Pennant, Some Account of London, op. cit.
55. H. Chamberlain, A New and compleat History and Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (J. Cooke, 1770)
56. C.W. Shepherd, A Thousand Years of London Bridge (Baker, 1971)
Chapter 15 Tower Bridge
57. W. Senior et al., The Royal River (Cassell & Co., 1885)
58. John Wolfe Barry, The Tower Bridge (Boot, Son and Carpenter, 1894)
59. J.E. Tuit, The Tower Bridge: its history and construction (The Engineer, 1894)
60. Honor Godfrey, Tower Bridge (John Murray, 1988)
Sources
The research upon which this book is based has mainly been done in London’s local and national libraries. Of national libraries, I have made extensive use of the resources of the British Library, the Newspaper Library at Collingdale and the House of Lords Record Office. I have also spent much time delving into publications and local material in the local archive libraries of the Corporation of London and the London boroughs that border the River Thames. The specific libraries I have used are recorded in the acknowledgements.
General sources
The following sources have provided much of the information on subjects relevant to many or all of the bridges.
Newspapers, journals and magazines
The Newspaper Library holds daily and weekly publications, but if you are looking for a journal, I would recommend checking whether it is held there or at the British Library before making a visit. Many local libraries also hold old newspapers and journals. Most of the articles cover a specific bridge, as referenced in the text of the book. I include a list here of publications which I have found useful on several occasions:
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