The Victorian Era

What Is the History of the Tower Bridge?

Article · Architecture & Design · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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Tower Bridge is the most famous bridge in London, and one of the most famous bridges in the world. The bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge, designed by Horace Jones, the City Architect, in the Gothic style, and constructed between 1886 and 1894. The bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, on 30 June 1894. The history of the building is examined in Famous Victorian Buildings and Landmarks, and the broader context is set out in Victorian Architecture and Interior Design.

The Need for a New Bridge

By the 1870s, the only road bridge over the River Thames in the east of London was London Bridge, which had been built in the thirteenth century and rebuilt many times. The old bridge was unable to cope with the traffic of the growing metropolis, and the Corporation of the City of London decided in 1876 that a new bridge was needed. A special sub-committee, chaired by the architect and politician Sir Horace Jones, was set up to consider the question, and in 1877 the committee recommended that the new bridge be built a few hundred yards downstream of London Bridge, just downstream of the Tower of London, from which it would take its name.

The Corporation held a competition for the design of the new bridge in 1876, and the entries were displayed publicly in the Guildhall. The competition attracted over 50 designs, including entries by several of the leading engineers of the day, and the committee was unable to choose a winner. A second, smaller competition was held in 1878, and again the committee was unable to choose. The committee eventually decided to take the design out of the hands of the competition, and in 1884 the Corporation’s own architect, Horace Jones, produced a final design, in a Gothic style that complemented the neighbouring Tower of London, and the design was approved by the Corporation later that year.

Horace Jones

Horace Jones (1819–1887) was the City Architect of the Corporation of the City of London, and the architect of the Tower Bridge. Born in London, Jones trained as an architect in the offices of William Tite, and he was appointed City Architect in 1864, a post he held until his death in 1887. He was responsible for a number of important buildings of the Corporation, including the new City of London School on the Embankment (1880–82), the new City of London Police Courts at Bishopsgate (1886), the City of London Markets at Smithfield, the City of London Mortuary, and a number of other civic buildings. He was a versatile architect, working in the Classical, the Gothic, the Italianate, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Rococo, and the Modern styles, and he was knighted in 1886 for his services as City Architect.

Jones died in May 1887, before the bridge was complete, and the work was taken over by John Wolfe Barry, the engineer, and George D. Stevenson, the architect. Barry was the son of Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament, and he had worked as an engineer on several of the great railway termini of the period, including Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and Blackfriars. Stevenson was a colleague of Jones at the City Architect’s office. The bridge as built was very largely the design of Jones, with some modifications by Barry and Stevenson, most notably the addition of the present stone facing, which was a departure from the original brick.

The Construction of the Bridge

The Tower Bridge was constructed between 1886 and 1894 by a large team of engineers, contractors, and workmen. The foundations of the two great piers were sunk into the river bed by means of caissons filled with concrete, and the two piers were built upon them. The towers were constructed around steel frames and clad in Cornish granite and Portland stone in the Gothic style; the bascules were built of steel and operated by hydraulic machinery; the suspension chains were anchored in the abutments on either bank; and the high-level walkways were carried in steel lattice girders between the tops of the towers.

The Tower Bridge was the largest and most sophisticated bascule bridge in the world at the time of its construction. Its counterweighted bascules were raised by hydraulic machinery, powered by steam-driven pumping engines and stored in accumulators, an advanced system for its day. The machinery was housed in the two piers, and the engines were originally coal-fired; the bridge now uses electricity, and the original engines are preserved in the engine rooms. The history of these innovations is examined in Victorian Engineering Marvels.

The Bridge Today

Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed building, and it is one of the most visited tourist attractions in London. The bridge carries both road and pedestrian traffic across the River Thames, and it is raised approximately 800 times a year to allow ships to pass. The bridge is owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust of the City of London Corporation, which has been responsible for the upkeep of the bridge since it opened. The Tower Bridge Exhibition, located in the towers and the high-level walkways of the bridge, tells the story of the bridge, of the City of London, and of the Port of London, and the Victorian engine rooms, with their original steam pumping engines and accumulators, are open to visitors.

The bridge has been a prominent feature of the London skyline since 1894, and it has become one of the recognised visual symbols of the city, alongside the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the dome of the Old Bailey. It has appeared in countless films, television programmes, posters, and photographs, and it remains a working bridge, a tourist attraction, a Grade I listed building, and a tribute to the skill of its Victorian builders. The history of the building is examined in Famous Victorian Buildings and Landmarks, and the engineering of the period is examined in Victorian Engineering Marvels.