Great Bridges Codexery

London Bridge

A series of Thames crossings since Roman times.

Last updated

London Bridge

via Wikipedia: London Bridge · see source

Where it is

Street map of the area around London Bridge; the red dot marks 51°30′29″N 0°05′17″W
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

Coordinates: 51°30′29″N 0°05′17″W (51.5080, -0.0880) · Open in OpenStreetMap

Coordinates and connected clubs: the infobox of Wikipedia: London Bridge (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map: drawn by Codexery from OpenStreetMap tiles.

Bridge House Estates, an independent charity overseen by the City of London Corporation, holds ownership and maintenance responsibility for the modern London Bridge.[1] The A3 road, whose upkeep falls to the Greater London Authority, is carried by this bridge.[1] A business improvement district on the Thames' southern shore, stretching from London Bridge to Tower Bridge, is marked out by this crossing.[1]

Geography and history

Above the surrounding swamp and marsh, the southern embankment acted as a natural causeway starting in the late Neolithic period.[2] A ford at low tide or a ferry at high tide could have been used to cross the River Thames between the two embankments.[2] As part of their road-building efforts to solidify their conquest, the Romans constructed the initial London Bridge.[3] Construction of the Roman roads to and from London likely occurred around AD 50, and a permanent timber bridge may have served the river crossing.[4]

At the bridge's southern terminus, a smaller settlement grew in what is today called Southwark.[5] Londinium was slowly deserted and the bridge deteriorated after Roman governance in Britain concluded early in the 5th century.[6] King William I ordered the bridge's reconstruction after the Norman Conquest of 1066.[7]

What the cited sources add

That article also notes that on April 15, McCulloch Oil Corporation signed the contract for £1,029,000 at Guildhall in London.[8] The Heritage - Tower Bridge website describes Edward Cruttwell as the first Superintending Engineer of Tower Bridge who oversaw the building of the new Bridge.[9] A 1932 Nature paper titled "Old London Bridge" has been cited by two other works.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Statutory Instrument 2000 No. 1117 – The GLA Roads Designation Order 2000", Government of the United Kingdom; "About us", TeamLondonBridge (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Merrifield, Ralph, London, City of the Romans, University of California Press, 1983, pp. 1–4. The terraces were formed by glacial sediment towards the end of th (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: The site of the new bridge determined the location of London itself. The alignment of Watling Street with the ford at Westminster (crossed via Thorney Island) i (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Engineering Timelines - Roman Bridge, London, site of", engineering-timelines.com; Margary, Ivan D., Roman Roads in Britain, Vol. 1, South of the Foss Way – Bristol Channel, Phoenix House Lts, London, 1955, pp. 46–48. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jones, B., and Mattingly, D., An Atlas of Roman Britain, Blackwell, 1990, pp. 168–172.; Merrifield, Ralph, London, City of the Romans, University of California Press, 1983, p. 31. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jeremy Haslam, 'The Development of London by King Alfred: A Reassessment'; Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 61 (2010), 109–44. R (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "London Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Thornbury, Walter, Old and New London, 1872, vol.2, p.10 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. "How London Bridge was sold to the States", Watford Observer, 27 March 2002. facts only, no text reused. watfordobserver.co.uk
  9. "About Edward Cruttwell", Heritage - Tower Bridge. facts only, no text reused. heritage.towerbridge.org.uk
  10. , "Old London Bridge", Nature (1932), doi:10.1038/129016c0. OpenAlex metadata CC0; paper not read. doi.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article London Bridge (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

Related entries

Named in this entry

The Waste LandT. S. EliotEstuaryEuropeIron AgeBoudicaThe Viking AgeAlfred the Great

Ranked in

Longest bridges

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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