Westminster Bridge seems a very recent structure as compared to that of London, but it is the next in point of date. The growing importance of Westminster as the seat of the Court and Parliament had made the necessity for an approach to the south side of the Thames, independent of the circuitous and narrow ways of London, long apparent. In the reign of Charles II. the question was seriously considered, to the alarm of the Mayor and Corporation of the city, who feared that their vested interests were endangered, and "that London would be destroyed if carts were allowed to cross the Thames elsewhere"; but, knowing their man, they devoted some of their ample funds to secure that monarch's successful opposition to the scheme. In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, when there was no Stuart to buy off, the idea was revived, and in 1739, one Monsieur Labelye, a Swiss engineer—English engineers having, apparently, not sufficient experience—commenced a new stone bridge. His mode of putting in his foundations may have been scientific, but was certainly simple. The bridge piers were partly built in floating barges moored above the place where they were to be permanently erected. The barges were then sunk, their sides knocked out, and the piers completed. It is needless to say that the result was not satisfactory, and for years before the old bridge was pulled down many of its arches were filled up with a picturesque, but inconvenient, mass of shoring. Whether Henry, Earl of Pembroke, who laid the foundation stone, and of whom it was said no nobleman had a purer taste in architecture, was in any way responsible for the design, we cannot tell; but a French traveller of discrimination, who criticised the work after its completion, came to the conclusion that the peculiarly lofty parapets with which the bridge was adorned were so designed that they might check an Englishman's natural propensity to suicide by giving him time for reflection while surmounting such an obstacle. It will be noticed in our illustration ([fig. 4]), which is also taken from a painting by Scott, that the piers are crowned by alcoves, which provided a shelter from the blasts which blew over the river and from the mud scattered from the roadway. These were, doubtless, a survival of the spaces left above the cutwaters of mediæval bridges as refuges for pedestrians from vehicles when the roadways were very narrow, and those who remember the old wooden bridges of Battersea and Putney can appreciate their value.
The city Corporation, which had so strenuously opposed the erection of a bridge at Westminster as unnecessary, set to work, as soon as that became an accomplished fact, to improve their own communications across the river. First, as we have seen, they cleared away the houses and other obstructions on old London Bridge, and next they started to build themselves a new bridge at Blackfriars. The land on both sides of the river at the point selected was very low and most unsuitable for the approaches, that on the north side being close to the mouth of the Fleet ditch, which there formed a creek large enough, in 1307, to form a haven for ships. The new bridge was begun in 1760, from the designs of Robert Mylne, a Scotch architect, who made an unsuccessful attempt to give an architectural effect to the structure by facing the piers with pairs of Ionic columns, standing on the cutwaters. The steep gradients of the bridge, necessitated by the lowness of the banks, made such a decoration peculiarly unsuitable, as each pair of columns had to be differently proportioned in height, although the cornice over them remained of the same depth throughout. But, in spite of its appearance of lightness, the structure was too heavy for its foundations, and for years this bridge rivalled that of Westminster in the picturesqueness of its dilapidation. The piers had been built on platforms of timber, so that when London Bridge was rebuilt, and the river flowed in an unchecked course, these became exposed to the scour and were soon washed out.
Fig. 4—Old Westminster Bridge.
Waterloo Bridge was completed in 1817, and still remains unaltered and as sound as when its builders left it. It is fortunate that the approach on the north side was an easy one, as but a short interval occurred between the Strand, at almost its highest point, and the river bank, which it was easy to fill up, with the result that the bridge passes across the river at a perfect level. The foundations of the piers were properly constructed by means of coffer-dams, and no sign of failure has ever shown itself in its superstructure. The architect repeated the use of the orders, as at Blackfriars, but with a more fortunate result, as, the work being straight throughout, no variations in the proportions were required, and he was wise enough to select the Doric order as more suitable to his purpose, and as suggesting more solidity.
Londoners profess to be somewhat proud of Waterloo Bridge, and it is a tradition among them that Canova, when he saw it, said that it was worth a journey across Europe to see. It, therefore, seems the more incredible that the grandchildren of those who could build such a bridge and appreciate such a man, could have erected, and even affect to admire, such a monstrosity as the Tower Bridge.
The last of the older bridges to be built was that of Southwark, which was the speculation of a private company, who hoped to profit by the continuously congested state of London Bridge; but the steepness of the gradients and the inconvenience of the approaches from the city made it from the first a failure. It was the first bridge in London to be constructed in iron; its model being the great single-span bridge across the Wear at Sunderland. It is in three great arches, the centre one being 240 feet across, or four feet more than that at Sunderland, and the mass of metal is such that an ordinary change of temperature will raise the arches an inch, and summer sunshine much more.
Of the more recent bridges there is nothing to say worth the saying. The Thames, which was the busy and silent highway of our forefathers, is still silent, but busy no longer, and the appearance of its bridges is now no one's concern, since no one sees them. So long as they will safely carry the tramcar or the motor 'bus from side to side, they may become uglier even than they now are, if only that make them a little more cheap.
