Tower Bridge

TOWER BRIDGE

Tower Bridge is one of the most iconic buildings in London and it is associated with the Untied Kingdom’s capital city by people who have never come close to setting foot on England’s shores. It is a much loved landmark, in part because of its ‘fairyland appearance,’ which has been copied in amusement parks from ‘Legoland’ in Windsor, to the ‘Beijing World Park’ in China. Delicate scale models have even been constructed from thousands of matchsticks by jailed drugs barons in Bogotá.

When Tower Bridge was first completed, the critics of the day were scathing and one said, “a more absurd structure than the Tower Bridge was never thrown across a strategic river,” never realising that its very absurdity would endear the bridge to many millions, across the globe and down the generations. Indeed, the initial widespread disapproval evaporated and Victorian hearts and minds soon warmed to the bridge. Tower Bridge is not as old as is commonly thought, particularly by tourists visiting London. It is actually one of the last major buildings of the Victorian era.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the traffic congestion over London Bridge could be ignored no longer and another bridge to cross the Thames, situated to the east, had to be constructed. Such a bridge had been needed for centuries but there was an enduring problem. Tall ships needed access to the world’s largest port, The Pool of London, which lay to the immediate east of London Bridge. By the late nineteenth century, technology and funding allowed for the construction of a bridge with moveable parts large enough to allow the safe passage of merchant vessels into the port.

In 1876, a design competition was opened to public competition for the new crossing. Over fifty design entries were submitted from across the four compass points of the British Isles. Eyebrows were raised when the eventual winner of the competition turned out to be one of the competition judges. The bridge was designed by Sir Horace Jones and built by Sir John Wolfe Barry, together with four hundred and thirty-two construction workers. The bridge took eight years to build and opened in 1894. Costing ninety-seven million pounds in today’s money, the internal structure is metal, using eleven thousand tons of steel. Clad in Cornish Granite and Portland Stone, the Victorian Gothic design was to compliment the neighbouring landmark, The Tower of London.

The most notable feature of the bridge is the two bascules, each weighing a thousand tons, that raise up to enable the river traffic to enter and leave The Pool of London. The bascules, deriving from the French for ‘see-saw,’ were operated by hydraulics, using steam to power the enormous pumping engines. The energy created was stored in six accumulators, so as soon as power was required to lift, it was always available. The accumulators supplied the driving engines that powered the bascules, taking only about a minute to raise to their maximum angle of eighty-six degrees. It was the largest and most sophisticated bascule bridge of the era.  Today, the bascules are still operated by hydraulic power, but steam was abandoned in the 1970’s and they are now driven by oil and electricity.

Navigational control consisted of red semaphore signals in daytime and coloured lights at night, to indicate whether the bridge was open. A tug was always on standby in the rare event of ships getting jammed in the middle. Today, twenty-four hours notice must be given before the bridge will be raised. It is now common for vessels to provide many weeks of notice. A ship entering or leaving gives a radio signal eight minutes away and the bridge master will prepare to open the bascules. The vessel needs to be thirty feet or taller to require opening and only the very largest require the bascules to lift for the full ninety seconds to reach their fullest extent. Since the introduction of electronics, the bridge has failed to open occasionally, which was never the case under steam.

The walkways at the top were designed with a duel purpose, primarily as a strengthening device to prevent the two towers pulling away from each when the bascules lift and secondly, to allow the uninterrupted flow of foot passage across the water when the bridge was raised. However, most people preferred to wait at street level for the road to drop, rather than climb up and down the hundreds of stairs. The walkways soon became a popular haven for prostitutes and pickpockets, leading to their closure to the public in 1910. 

Over its history, Tower Bridge has had a number of notable incidents. On a chilly December 30^th in 1952, the customary bell was not sounded that warned of an imminent bridge lift, leading to a crowded number seventy-eight bus being nearly half-way across Tower Bridge when it began to raise up. The driver slammed his foot on the accelerator and the vehicle crossed over a three feet gap, smashing its chassis as it landed on the other side. The following decade, Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock flew past Big Ben and then beneath Tower Bridge in protest that senior staff were not going to celebrate the R.A.F.’s fiftieth anniversary. The service bigwigs had a sense of humour failure and it proved to be his final flight in uniform. In the late 1990’s, Bill Clinton’s presidential motorcade was unexpectedly divided in two by the bridge raising, with panicking security officials stranded on one side and Clinton on the other. The occurrence was a reminder that on Tower Bridge, shipping always takes precedence over vehicular traffic.

Tower Bridge is crossed by over forty thousand motorists, cyclists and pedestrians every day. Its popularity as a crossing point is partly to do with the bridge being just outside of the Congestion Zone, inside of which motorists are charged to drive. Currently, Tower Bridge is having all the paint stripped in a four million pound programme that is estimated to be completed by 2012. It is being repainted with twenty-two thousand litres of the same red, white and blue, which has adorned the metalwork since the Queen’s Jubilee in 1977, prior to which, the bridge was chocolate brown in colour.

The re-painting programme work will at times affect those visiting the Tower Bridge Exhibition, located inside the bridge. Allow at least an hour and a half to see The Tower Bridge Exhibition, where access to the high level walkways offers stunning views of London. The original Victorian pumping engines, accumulators and boilers are open for display. The Bridge Master’s dining room and the walkways may be hired for corporate hospitality, wedding receptions and private parties.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge Road

London SE1 2UP

Where to view Tower Bridge and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Tower Bridge’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Royal Albert Hall

 ROYAL ALBERT HALL

The idea for the Royal Albert Hall was seeded from the aftermath of The Great Exhibition of 1851. Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria, was the mastermind behind The Great Exhibition and afterwards he saw the need for a permanent structure to replace the temporary ‘Crystal Palace.’ It was only after Albert’s death that the ball was set rolling for what was to originally be named, “The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences.’ It was opened ten years after his death in 1871, with Queen Victoria altering its name to, ‘The Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences.’

The Royal Albert Hall suitably reflected Albert’s unflagging enthusiasm for technology. The idea for the design of a huge amphitheatre was said to have come from a German immigrant acquaintance of Prince Albert’s. Built by an engineer rather than an architect, it had six million bricks used in its construction. The engineering skills are particularly evident in the forty-one metres high steel and glass dome that caps the building. A dominant feature is the mosaic frieze depicting ‘The Triumph of Arts and Sciences’ that runs around the exterior building. The finer details are best observed from the smoking gallery, although it is clearly visible even from ground level.

The hall is situated alongside Kensington Gore, on the south side of Hyde Park in central London. The hall is best known for ‘The Proms’ which take place daily over eight summertime weeks of each year, making it the world’s largest music festival, with listeners tuning in to listen from across the four compass points of the globe. However, when the hall first opened, there was widespread despair when the notoriously bad acoustics first became apparent. The echo was so bad that a common joke circulated about the Albert Hall being the only place where a British composer could be sure of hearing their work twice.

‘The Proms’ are classical music concerts that first took place at the Royal Albert Hall in 1941 and nowadays they are they are relayed to audiences in the open air in the nearby Hyde Park. ‘The Promenade Concerts’ were started by Henry Wood in 1895 and only moved to the Royal Albert Hall when their customary venue was destroyed during The Second World War. The Proms conductors’ batons wave at an average speed of three and a half miles per hour, no doubt a similar pace to the batons of Elgar, Wagner, Verdi and Rachmaninov, who all had the opportunity to conduct at The Royal Albert Hall.

Besides ‘The Proms,’ there are up to three hundred and fifty shows annually. Performers ranging from Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have all performed on the stage. However, the amphitheatre has been used for events as random as tennis tournaments, religious meetings, poetry recitals, television and film awards, business conventions, university graduation ceremonies, circus shows, ballet and even prize fights, with the Kray twins boxing there in the 1950’s and Mohammed Ali in the 1970’s. Winston Churchill, The Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and The Queen have all spoken to distinguished audiences at the hall.

The Royal Albert Hall originally had seating for eight thousand people, reduced during renovation, completed in 2004, to just over five and a half thousands, to comply with twenty-first century safety demands. During the renovation, it was discovered that the terracotta used in the façade is a material with a tough skin and a soft heart, needing much careful attention. As a Grade I listed building, English Heritage had to oversee the renovation project, particularly every structural change, which mostly took place beneath ground level, with a new loading bay. The seven-year redevelopment cost over sixty-six million pounds, with the intention of seeing the hall through to the end of the twenty-first century in fine shape.

The Royal Albert Hall,

Kensington Gore,

London SW7 2AP

 Where to view Royal Albert Hall and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Royal Albert Hall’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Embankment

EMBANKMENT

The Victoria Embankment was constructed after a centuries old problem had been avoided to the point where it could be ignored no longer. The river Thames, as it passed through London, had always been used as an open sewer. As the population of London grew, the problem escalated and during the exceptionally hot summer of 1858, the smell became so overpowering that it permeated to the four compass points of London and duly became known as, ‘The Great Stink.’ Sheets soaked in chlorine and lime were hung on the Houses Of Parliament windows whilst inside the politicians of the day were forced to debate a solution, which resulted, in part, with the construction of The Victoria Embankment.

The idea of an embankment was not a new one, it was touted after the Great Fire Of London in 1666, but the plans were not adopted. At low water, even as late as the Victorian period, large muddy reaches were exposed and were considered a ‘hotbed of pestilence and fever.’ The new embankment narrowed the river, with thirty acres of land being reclaimed from the low tide flats. Coupled with dredging, the flow of the water increased in speed, making for a cleaner river. The river had to be dammed during construction, which was no mean feat, to allow the positioning of 650,000 cubic feet of granite, 80,000 cubic yards of brickwork and 140,000 cubic yards of concrete.

The project clearly allowed for no half measures and many vast and expensive riverside properties were destroyed when building began in 1865. Sir Joseph Bazalgette masterminded the engineering feat and it won much applause when it was completed five years later. However, the most important factor was the incorporation of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s many miles of sewers with Gothic vaulting more reminiscent of the undercroft of a cathedral. Above the sewers the track for the District Line Underground (Tube) trains were positioned and at surface level a new highway was laid, easing traffic congestion from Strand and Fleet Street.

Behind the busy lanes of traffic on the embankment are The Victoria Embankment Gardens, which were opened in 1872. The government wanted the valuable land for development, but Sir Joseph Bazalgette insisted it be laid out for public enjoyment. To this day free concerts take place there, not far from the fine statues of Robert Burns and William Tyndale, who was the first to write an English bible translated from the Greek. In the gardens is ‘The Water Gate’ by Inigo Jones, the only relic of York House, which was destroyed to build the embankment. The Victoria Embankment is lined with fine London Plane trees, which were planted at intervals of twenty feet. Some were vandalised and rewards of twenty pounds, a huge sum for the day, were offered for information leading to convictions of any person caught damaging them. Nowadays, the trees reach high above the splendid original lampposts, all with stylized dolphins at their bases.

Several ships of importance are permanently moored on the riverside and have become fixtures of the landscape. H.M.S. President was built in 1918 and designed to look like a merchant vessel, the intention being to draw German U boats, which would then be attacked using hidden weapons. At one time all land based officers of the Royal navy were enlisted to H.M.S President, as all those serving in the Royal Navy had to be ascribed a ship. In the early twenty-first century, the vessel is hired out for private parties and functions.

A short way upstream from H.M.S. President is H.Q.S. Wellington, built in 1935 and purchased by The Honourable Company Of Master Mariners in 1947 and it is the city’s only floating livery hall. During the Second World War, she was on ‘ocean convoy escort duty’ in the north Atlantic. King Edward the Eighth was the first master of the company and his portrait hangs on board, the only picture of him to have been painted whilst he was king.

Further upstream along the embankment are moored several ships turned into bars and restaurants. The Queen Mary is the only London pub to have spent forty years crossing the Clyde, where it served as a ferry. If you find yourself swaying after only your drink, it probably means you are aboard the Hispaniola by Hungerford Bridge, which vies for business with the neighbouring PS Tattershall Castle, an old coal burning paddle steamer that once carried passengers across the Humber river, that is now also a pub and restaurant.

Old Scotland Yard, The Ministry Of Defence, Charing Cross Railway Station, The Savoy Hotel, Somerset House and The Middle and Inner Temple all overlook the Victoria Embankment and amidst them is ShellMex House. This distinctive early thirties Art Deco construction is distinctive for having the largest clock face in London, visible high up behind the oldest monument in London, Cleopatra’s Needle.

Cleopatra’s Needle was given to the British in 1819 by an Albanian who ruled Egypt on behalf of the Turks. A prominent freemason paid the £10,000 it cost to transport the needle to London the year before it was erected. The sea voyage was difficult, it was towed across the sea in a huge iron cylinder. It was cut loose during a violent storm and was found floating aimlessly like the Marie Celeste, by chance, by another English ship. Six sailors died during transportation to London and it was finally positioned on the Victoria Embankment in 1878.

The obelisk is erroneously named, as Cleopatra never saw it. A staggering 3,500 years old, it came all the way from Heliopolis at Memphis in Egypt. The sphinxes positioned at its base should be pointing outwards not inwards as they are supposed to be guarding it, not admiring it. Stone was blasted away from the plinths and the bronze paws of a sphinx were punctured when a shell narrowly missed the needle during The First World War. Beneath the needle is a Victorian time capsule, which includes a Victorian railway timetable and photographs of those considered to be the most beautiful twelve ladies of the time. The needle has suffered more weathering on the windswept embankment than in the previous three thousand years. There are suggestions it should be moved to the protected atmosphere of British Museum, which would allow the hidden time capsule an untimely opening.

The Victoria Embankment may be accessed by Westminster, Embankment and Temple London Underground (Tube) stations. River cruises offer terrific views of the embankment and can be taken from the Westminster Pier by Westminster Bridge on the Victoria Embankment.

 Where to view Embankment and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Embankment’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.