How The London Bridges Got Their Names

Fulham Railway Bridge (1889)

There are few metro stations in the world as enchanting as Hammersmith. If anyone has ever seen the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie (starring Johnny Depp), then with that fantastic, retro-inspired exterior shot of the lift shaking and whizzing along above the river flying out of the station like a freefall ride, is enough to fall in love with this place. Although if you're one of those people that goes from zero to 'knicker wetting'in 0.

85 seconds, then maybe you might prefer the underground escalators leading into the station that are so narrow I could just imagine getting wedged between them, My City of London (mycityoflondon.co.uk). Opened in 1731, Hammersmith Bridge was the second of Londons bridges to be built across the Thames. It has one small and one large arch, and three smaller ones immediately on each bank of the river. It was often painted by Canaletto in the eighteenth century,and depicted by artists such as J.

M. W. Turner and John Constable in the nineteenth century who made frequent visits to Bermondsey to paint it from a boat on the river. I have visited Hammersmith and I find the idea that someone walked past the bridge, picked up a hammer and thought, “I’m going to build a bridge here”. Or perhaps picked up a pointy stick by the side of the Thames and said, “With this I’ll build a shelter for fishermen near the water.

” The place is lovely though. Its a Friday evening, and I’ve slipped out onto the balcony to take advantage of what little light is left in the sky. As I look eastwards down the Thames towards central London, I crane my neck to spot one London’s greatest icons, the Hammersmith Bridge. Hammersmith Bridge, also known as simply Hammersmith Bridge or The Hungerford Bridge, is a suspension bridge for road traffic and pedestrians crossing the River Thames in West London.

Hammersmith Bridge (1887)

85 seconds, then maybe you might prefer the underground escalators leading into the station that are so narrow I could just imagine getting wedged between them. Opened in 1731, Hammersmith Bridge was the second of Londons bridges to be built across the Thames. It has one small and one large arch, and three smaller ones immediately on each bank of the river. It was often painted by Canaletto in the eighteenth century,and depicted by artists such as J.

Hampton Court Bridge (1933)

In this article, we will discuss the following points: The Background; The Construction; Bridge Crossing Details; The Future As a result of the early example of an appearance of a stack with four main arched central spans and with the semi-circular outer segmental arches, Hampton Court Bridge is now considered a rare architectural gem. In fact, it is one of three surviving towers from which spans, similar to Hampton Court Bridge, appeared in Britain during the reign of King George V.

The bridge was constructed shortly after the B. B. C. moved it’s transmitter to nearby Bush House in 1932. The Bridge spans the river between Kingston and Hampton Court, and was built as an alternative to the previously existing bridge next door at Teddington. The first bridge was also named Hampton Court Bridge but had been demolished by Hampton on the building of their new one in 1911, which crosses the Thames between Hampton Court Palace and Kingston upon Thames (Surrey).

A picture is worth a thousand words, and it’s even easier to get a feel for a place by the way that it looks. I think that has led to my huge interest in photography and (more recently) street photography. When you go on holiday, sometimes you want to go somewhere different that you’ve never been before. Or if you live outside of London, sometimes there just aren’t many opportunities to take your camera out for a spin.

In the 17th century, Hampton Court was a royal retreat and hunting lodge. Later it would become an important property in the Royal Family’s possession. Twice a year (in June and November) it was used as a venue to receive ambassadors and mark special occasions, as well as being a residence of some members of the Royal Family. It is still a working palace today, where official functions and banquets are held. A historic relic from the 19th century, sit in the shadow of Hampton Court Bridge today and look west over the River Thames towards Hampton Court Palace and you’ll see something fairly surprising.

Lambeth Bridge (1932)

Westminster Bridge Road and Lambeth Palace Road roughly follow the path of the early medieval Lambeth Road that ran from London Bridge to a ford across the Thames 350 metres south of the modern bridge. The modern bridge was built in 1817 and was designed by John Rennie the Younger, it is built mainly of granite from Dartmoor in Devon with some limestone underpinning. The foundations are brick lined and below them are springs which according to legend were caused by escaping pagan Saxons chiseling out the salty water from the ground in what was once marshland.

The riverbanks are owned by Westminster College which has led to discussions with Lambeth Council over who should pay to clean the foundations as they are regularly blight. In the 1920s that part of south London wasn’t very attractive. It was a run-down area, poor and overcrowded with a reputation for crime. But just at this time Lambeth council began to make changes to attract more business there. They set about building new roads, creating gardens along the riverfront and even turning one of the old wharves into a pleasure pier.

It all worked, and people began to move in from around London. Lambeth Bridge seen from across the Thames. The bridge was constructed between 1898 and 1902 by the Metropolitan Board of Works (M. B. W. ), and originally carried electricity cables as part of an experiment by Balfour Beatty to improve transmission lines along the road. It was the Lambeth Bridge that finally convinced me to move out of London. I'd lived in Brixton for three years, and while Brixton is a great area, commuting from one end to the other had become tiring.

As many people will know, getting around London isn't easy. Lambeth Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames in west London. It crosses from the Palace of Westminster to Lambeth, in south London. The centre brick tower of the span features Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. There, on a small island that’s connected to the bridge via a footpath, stands an enormous boring machine. The bridge was built by the Hampton Court Bridge and Railway Company, and designed (in part) by Sir Edward Lutyens.

Southwark Bridge (1921)

The opening of the nearby Blackfriars bridge in 1769 caused the renamed Southwark Bridge to become an important traffic artery into Central London. The low and narrow arch of its predecessor was too small for tall carts and carriages. Horse-drawn vehicles were charged with a toll until 1831. It was improved in the early 1880s under the supervision of Joseph Cubitt, son of Thomas Cubitt, who had overseen the building of his father's famed redevelopment north of the Thames: Bloomsbury Square, Euston Square and King's Cross.

The original London Bridge was built by the Romans in the first century AD, linking Bankside (then called Suthriganaweorc) with what’s been the City of London ever since. The large stone bridge stood until 1832, when it was sold to an American who was planning to build his own overhang across the Thames at Marble Hill House in Twickenham, which he duly did. Like its neighbour bridge Tower Bridge, it is a drawbridge. Completed in 1921, it is one of the few Thames bridges with such a mechanism, most use high level entrances and road tunnel openings underneath to allow traffic to flow during high water.

The opening is only 14 feet wide so earlier much smaller boats could pass through without being drawn up. Most of Southwark is now the City of London, a patchwork of tiny City states, rudely bounded by the most expensive real estate in the world. It has a population approaching 1000000 and creates over a quarter of gross UK product; it also contains more high-rise buildings than any other part of the world except New York.

The Elephant and Castle is a district in Central London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. It forms a roughly triangular district between Newington Causeway to the south, Blackfriars Road to the west and Great Dover Street (a main road) to the east. That the name means southern defensive work might suggest that this was a defensive site occupied by Saxon settlers on the Surrey bank during the period of Anglo-Saxon expansion in the 5 th century.

Wandsworth Bridge (1939)

Wandsworth Bridge is an iconic symbol for Wandsworth and is one of the main traffic routes between Putney, which is to the south of the River Thames, and Battersea, to the north. The bridge was built in 1887–91 by the splendidly named company firm Brunel, Brassey & Stuart, replacing a number of wooden structures. The iron lattice swing bridge design allowed boats to pass through underneath. Wandsworth was once a town in its own right, but by the 1600s it was in decline.

The textile industry helped revive it, and led to the opening of large houses, which later became hotels. The most famous is the five-star Hotel du Vin. But the Wandle is not quite the only river in south London that fulfils the role of giving its name to a place. My next post will be on Walton-on-Thames, but now it’s the turn of another suburb some miles to the east – Wandsworth. Wandsworth was a tiny village in the county of Surrey, its fields and pastures surrounded by the great oaks of Hyde Park and Putney Heath.