Vauxhall Bridge

Vauxhall Bridge is a steel and granite bridge in central London. It crosses the River Thames in a north-west south-east direction between Vauxhall on the south bank and Westminster on the north bank.

Vauxhall Bridge
Coordinates	51°29′15″N 0°07′37″W
Carries	4 lanes of roadway, cyclists, and pedestrians
Crosses	River Thames
Locale	London
Preceded by	Regent Bridge (Old Vauxhall Bridge) 1816–1898
Characteristics
Design	Arch bridge
Material	Steel and granite
Total length	809 feet (247 m)
Width	80 feet (24 m)
No. of spans	5
Piers in water	4
Clearance below	39 feet 9 inches (12.1 m) at lowest astronomical tide[1]
History
Designer	Sir Alexander Binnie, Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice
Opened	26 May 1906
Statistics
Daily traffic	50,533 vehicles (2004)[2]
Location

History

Vauzhall Bridge in 1906. It replaced an earlier bridge as part of a program for redeveloping the south bank of the Thames. The original bridge was itself built on the site of a former ferry.

The building of both bridges was difficult, with both the first and second bridges needing multiple redesigns from multiple architects. The original bridge, the first iron bridge over the Thames, was built by a private company and was run as a toll bridge before being taken into public ownership in 1879. The second bridge, which took eight years to build, was the first in London to carry trams and later one of the first two roads in London to have a bus lane.

The present bridge is most significant for road traffic across the Thames.

In June 2012, the bridge was highlighted on the route of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the Thames.^[3]

Related pages

• List of crossings of the River Thames

References

1. Thames Bridges Heights, Port of London Authority, archived from the original on 2011-07-20, retrieved 2009-05-25
2. Cookson 2006, p. 316
3. Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, Key facts Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine; Londontown.com, "Thames Jubilee Pageant,"; retrieved 2012-6-4.

Further reading

• Carpenter, David (2003), The Struggle for Mastery, Oxford University Press US, ISBN 0-19-522000-5, OCLC 52594503
• Cookson, Brian (2006), Crossing the River, Edinburgh: Mainstream, ISBN 1-840189-76-2, OCLC 63400905
• De Maré, Eric (1954), Bridges of Britain (2nd (1975) ed.), London: Batsford, ISBN 0-713429-25-9, OCLC 255670618
• Jeremiah, David (2000), Architecture and Design for the Family in Britain 1900–70, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-719058-89-9, OCLC 186445752
• Matthews, Peter (2008), London's Bridges, Oxford: Shire, ISBN 978-0-7478-0679-0, OCLC 213309491
• Murray, Peter; Stevens, Mary Anne; Cadman, David (1996), Living Bridges: the inhabited bridge, past, present and future, London: Royal Academy of Arts, ISBN 3-791317-34-2, OCLC 36113250
• Sir Alec Skempton, ed. (2002), Biographical Directory of Civil Engineers, vol. 1, London: Thomas Telford, ISBN 0-72-772939-X
• Timbs, John (1855), Curiosities of London, London: David Bogue, OCLC 3807583

Other websites

• Media related to Vauxhall Bridge at Wikimedia Commons