Tower Bridge

About Tower Bridge

Bascule and suspension bridge in London

Tower Bridge is London's most famous bridge and one of its most recognisable landmarks, crossing the Thames beside the Tower of London from which it takes its name. Built between 1886 and 1894 to the design of Horace Jones with engineering by John Wolfe Barry and Henry Marc Brunel, it was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales, and Princess Alexandra on 30 June 1894. It is a combined bascule and suspension bridge: two Gothic towers 65 metres high are linked at the top by horizontal walkways, while the central pair of bascules lift to let ships through, originally by hydraulic power and since 1972 by an electro-hydraulic system. Including its abutments it is 290 metres long and is listed Grade I. It was built to connect the East End, then home to 39 per cent of Londoners, with the south bank without blocking shipping into the Pool of London between the Tower and London Bridge, hence the ingenious opening design. It remains a vital route with 40,000 crossings a day, lifts several times daily according to shipping rather than a fixed timetable, and is owned and maintained by the City Bridge Foundation, a charity founded in 1282. Crossing on foot is free, while the Tower Bridge Exhibition takes visitors inside the towers and by lift to the high-level walkways, whose glass floors show the traffic and river beneath your feet, and then to the Victorian engine rooms that once powered the bridge. Alongside lie the regenerated South Bank and the old warehouses and restaurants of Butler's Wharf.

Where:

London, United Kingdom