Waterloo Bridge | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Coordinates | 51°30′31″N0°07′01″W / 51.5086°N 0.1169°W /51.5086; -0.1169 |
| Carries | A301 road |
| Crosses | River Thames |
| Locale | London |
| Named for | Battle of Waterloo |
| Maintained by | Transport for London |
| Heritage status | Grade II* listed structure |
| Preceded by | Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges |
| Followed by | Blackfriars Bridge |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | Box girder bridge |
| Total length | 1,230 feet (370 m) |
| Width | 80 feet (24 m) |
| Longest span | 233 feet (71 m) |
| History | |
| Opened | (first bridge) 18 June 1817; 208 years ago (18 June 1817) (second bridge) 11 March 1942; 83 years ago (11 March 1942) |
| Location | |
 Interactive map of Waterloo Bridge | |
Waterloo Bridge (/ˌwɔːtəˈluː/[1][2]) is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing theRiver Thames inLondon, betweenBlackfriars Bridge andHungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at theBattle of Waterloo in 1815. Thanks to its location at a strategic bend in the river, the bridge offers good views ofWestminster, theSouth Bank and theLondon Eye to the west, and of theCity of London andCanary Wharf to the east.
The bridge was givenGrade II* listed structure protection in 1981.[3]
| Strand Bridge Act 1809 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
 | |
| Long title | An Act for building a Bridge over the River Thames from the Precinct of the Savoy, or near thereunto, in the County of Middlesex, to the opposite Shore, and for making, convenient Roads and Avenues to communicate therewith, in the County of Surrey. |
| Citation | 49 Geo. 3. c. cxci |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 20 June 1809 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amended by | Strand Bridge Act 1813 |
| Repealed by | |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Strand Bridge Act 1813 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
| |
| Long title | An Act for altering, enlarging, and extending the Powers of an Act of His present Majesty, for building a Bridge over the River Thames, at the Precinct of the Savoy, or near thereunto; and making Roads and Avenues to communicate therewith, in the Counties of Middlesex and Surrey. |
| Citation | 53 Geo. 3. c. clxxxiv |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 2 July 1813 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amends | Strand Bridge Act 1809 |
| Repealed by | |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The first bridge on the site was designed in 1809–10 byJohn Rennie for the Company of Proprietors of TheStrand Bridge (the Strand Bridge Company). The Strand Bridge Company built the bridge privately, in return for charging tolls to cross it.
Originally named 'the Strand Bridge', following the victory of the Battle of Waterloo, the bridge was renamed in 1816 (before its opening) to 'the Waterloo Bridge'. The bridge company was at the same time renamed 'The Company of Proprietors of The Waterloo Bridge'. It opened in 1817 as atoll bridge.[4]
Thegranite bridge[a] had nine arches, each of 120 feet (36.6 m) span, separated by double Doric stone columns, and was 2,456 feet (748.6 m) long, including approaches–1,240 feet (378.0 m) between abutments–and 42 feet (12.8 m) wide between the parapets.
During the 1840s the bridge gained a reputation as a popular place for suicide attempts. In 1841, the AmericandaredevilSamuel Gilbert Scott was killed while performing an act in which he hung by a rope from a scaffold on the bridge.[6] In 1844Thomas Hood wrote the poem "The Bridge of Sighs", which concerns the suicide of a prostitute there.[7]
The bridge was depicted by the FrenchImpressionistClaude Monet in hisseries of 41 works from 1900 to 1904, and by the EnglishRomanticJohn Constable, whose painting depicting its opening is displayed atAnglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire.[8]
The bridge was nationalised in 1878 and placed under the control of theMetropolitan Board of Works, which removed the toll from it.
Michael Faraday tried in 1832 to measure thepotential difference[9] between each side of the bridge caused by the ebbing salt water flowing through the Earth's magnetic field[10] usingmagnetohydrodynamics.
Serious problems were found in Rennie's bridgepiers from 1884 onward, afterscour from the river flow (which had increased following the demolition ofOld London Bridge) damaged their foundations. By the 1920s the problems had increased, and settlement at pier five necessitated the closure of the whole bridge while some heavy superstructure was removed and temporary reinforcements were put in place.[11]
In 1925, a temporary steel framework was built on top of the existing bridge and then placed next to it for the use of southbound vehicles (the postcard image shows this, and the settlement especially to the left of the fifth pier).[3]
In the 1930s,London County Council decided to demolish the bridge and replace it with a new structure designed by SirGiles Gilbert Scott. The engineers were Ernest Buckton and John Cuerel ofRendel Palmer & Tritton. The project was placed on hold due to theSecond World War.
Scott, by his own admission, was no engineer, and his design, with reinforced concrete beams (illustrated) under the footways, leaving the road to be supported by transverse slabs, was difficult to implement. The pairs of spans on each side of the river were supported by beams continuous over their piers, and these werecantilevered out at their ends to support the centre span and the short approach slabs at the banks. The beams were shaped "to look as much like arches as ... beams can".[11] They are clad inPortland stone, which is cleaned by rain.[12] To guard against the possibility of further subsidence from scour, each pier was given a number ofjacks that can be used to level the structure.[11]
Construction of the new bridge began in 1937 and it was partially opened on Tuesday 11 March 1942 and "officially opened" in September 1942.[13] However, it was not fully completed until 1945.[14] It is the only Thames bridge to have been damaged byGerman bombers during the Second World War.
The building contractor wasPeter Lind & Company. At the outbreak of war, despite an immediate order being issued by the Ministry of Transport, that the bridge construction was of national importance, the supply of male labour to execute the heavy works became acute. From the start of the war through to the bridge completion, women became the preponderant members of the construction workforce. This resulted in the project being referred to for many years as "The Ladies' Bridge".[15][16] Lind usedelm wood from the old bridge for the dining room floor ofHamstone House, his house that he commissioned and built in 1938 atSt George's Hill in Surrey.[17]
Georgi Markov, a Bulgariandissident, was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge on 7 September 1978 by agents of the Bulgariansecret police, theCommittee for State Security, possibly assisted by theSoviet security agency, theKGB. He was killed with a poisoned pellet possibly fired from an umbrella.[18]
Granite stones from the original bridge were subsequently "presented to various parts of the British world to further historic links in the BritishCommonwealth of Nations". Two of these stones are inCanberra, the capital city of Australia, sited between the parallel spans of theCommonwealth Avenue Bridge, one of two major crossings ofLake Burley Griffin in the heart of the city. Stones from the bridge were also used to build a monument inWellington, New Zealand, toPaddy the Wanderer, a dog that roamed the wharves from 1928 to 1939 and was befriended by seamen, watersiders,Harbour Board workers and taxi drivers. The monument, built in 1945, is on Queens Wharf, opposite theWellington Museum. It includes a bronze likeness of Paddy, a drinking fountain, and drinking bowls below for dogs.[19][20]
Another piece of the stone is situated under the sundial in the Wellington Boat Harbour Park, next to Clyde Quay Marina, an area of historical significance in Wellington Harbour.[citation needed] Several stonebalusters from the demolished bridge were sent in the late 1930s by the authorDornford Yates to be used in his French home 'Cockade', but theFall of France in 1940 interrupted this project. They were shipped after the war to his new house inUmtali,Rhodesia (nowMutare,Zimbabwe).
Recovered timbers from the bridge were used for shelves and wall panels in the library at Anglesey Abbey.[8]
The south end of the bridge is in the area known as theSouth Bank, which includes theRoyal Festival Hall,London Waterloo,Queen Elizabeth Hall and theRoyal National Theatre, as well as theBFI Southbank, which is directly beneath the bridge.
The north end of the bridge passes above theVictoria Embankment where the road joins theStrand andAldwych alongsideSomerset House. This end housed the southern portal of theKingsway Tramway Subway until the late 1950s.
The bridge also connects theStrand Campus area and the Waterloo Campus ofKing's College London which are located in the north and south banks of River Thames, respectively.
The nearestLondon Underground station isTemple, the nearestNational Rail station is London Waterloo.
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Bridges of Central London(west to east) | ||
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51°30′31″N0°07′01″W / 51.50861°N 0.11694°W /51.50861; -0.11694
