River Trip - Westminster Bridge onwards
Westminster Bridge
Constructed 1739-50, with 15 stone arches spanning 1223 feet (373 m) of river, it was the second bridge, after London Bridge, to be built across the Thames in the central London area. William Wordsworth, in 1802, wrote a sonnet ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’ starting with the lines “Earth hath not anything to show more fair; / Dull would he be of soul who could pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty;”. In 1862, the foundations of the first bridge began to give way and the present one, designed by Thomas Page, was opened after midnight on Sunday morning 18 November 1750, with a grand torch light procession. In the 1990s, taking several years to complete, the bridge was considerably restored. Of all the bridges on the Thames, this one has the shallowest clearance of water at low tide. River boats were unable to pass through in the dry summer of 1976.
South Bank Lion
The statue is one of the largest objects ever formed in a material known as Coade Stone. It was once painted bright red and stood on top of the Red Lion Brewery which was demolished to make way for the Royal Festival Hall. The material of the statue was invented by a Lambeth family called Coade, whose secret formula followed them to the grave to be lost for ever.
County Hall
The foundation stone was laid in 1912 but the building was not completed until 1922 due to the First World War. County Hall housed the head offices of the Greater London Council (GLC) as well as those of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). The jurisdiction of the GLC extended over an area of approximately 616 square miles covering 33 boroughs, including the Cities of Westminster and London. It was disbanded in 1986. The building is now occupied by a large hotel, television studios and several entertainment venues.
Jubilee Gardens
The gardens were formally inaugurated under this name in 1977 by Her Majesty the Queen to mark her Silver Jubilee.
In 1951 the land had been used for the famous Festival of Britain which lasted about six months.
London Eye (Millennium Wheel)
London’s most popular attraction, it was designed to celebrate the Millennium. The designers were a man an wife team - David Marks and Julia Barfield. The slowly rotating wheel has a diameter of 394 feet (120 metres). It has 32 capsules, each weighing 10 tons and holding 25 people. It rotates over a period of about 30 minutes.
Shell Building
Opened in 1962, the tower block, 351 feet (108 m) high, was one of the largest fully air-conditioned office blocks in Europe. It houses the London Offices of the Shell Group. Around the turn of the Millennium, the down-stream building was vacated and converted into living accommodation.
Boudicca (Statue)
The equestrian statue to Boudicca or Boadicea, by Thorneycroft, was unveiled 1902 commemorating the queen of the British tribe who, in AD 61, led an army against Roman London setting it on fire.
Victoria Embankment
Opened 1882 by the Prince of Wales, it was one of the finest engineering projects undertaken in Victorian London. The embankment runs from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. A plaque to the engineer, Sir Joseph Bazalgette, commemorating his achievements, is on the river wall at the end of Northumberland Avenue. He reclaimed land from the Thames, built the first sewer system in Westminster, constructed an underground railway, now part of the the Circle Line, and laid out gardens beside a new road.
Portcullis House
Commissioned in 1992 and designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners, the building was opened in 2001 to provide offices for 213 Members of Parliament and their staff as well as Press Offices. The large structure is built around a large inner courtyard.
Norman Shaw Building
The pair of red-brick buildings with white stone decoration were opened 1890 as the Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police and called ‘New’ in contrast to the first premises further north at Great Scotland Yard. In 1967 the police moved 1967 to new headquarters, also called New Scotland Yard, near Victoria Street. The original two blocks have been renamed the Norman Shaw Buildings, after the architect, and are in use as offices for Members of Parliament. Nearby, at ground level, is Cannon Row Police Station.
Ministry of Defence
The large stone building, with a green roof, was completed in 1959. The wall to the river is approximately on the line of the Tudor Palace of Whitehall which rose from the river side. In the basement is a wine cellar dating from the reign of Henry VIII.
Air Force Memorial
Surmounted by a golden eagle, it was placed beside the river wall in 1923. The motto is ‘Per ardua, ad astra’ - through adversity to the stars.
Whitehall Court
The highly ornamented Victorian buildings are in use as offices and a private club. They stand beside the gardens on the Victoria Embankment.
Charing Cross Railway Bridge
In 1841 Isambard Brunel built a suspension foot-bridge on the site now occupied by Charing Cross Railway Bridge. It was called Hungerford Bridge after a large house that had once occupied the site on which Charing Cross Station now stands.
The central span was 676 feet (206 m) while the total length was 1352 feet (412 m). By comparison, the central span of the Albert Bridge is only two thirds the size and the overall dimension half the total length.
Hungerford Bridge was removed and the site was used to construct the railway bridge which opened in 1866.
The two red-brick piers, which had supported the suspension bridge, were incorporated into the steel railway bridge as supports. Since the previous bridge had been a footbridge, two footbridges were constructed on either side of the railway lines. The eastern footbridge was finally removed just before the Millennium and replaced by new walkways.
Golden Jubilee Footbridges
Designed by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, the two foot-bridges were erected either side of the railway bridge. Work started before 2000 but the whole project was not completed until 2003. The two bridges look all the more dramatic when viewed by night, due to the floodlighting of the large white supports reaching up into the sky.
