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Location: Battersea Bridge, Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom. (51°28′52″N 0°10′21″W).
Battersea Bridge
Battersea Bridge is a five-span arch bridge witch cast-iron girders and granite piers crossing the River Thames in London, England. It is situated on a sharp bend in the river, and links Battersea south of the river with Chelsea to the north. The bridge replaced a ferry service that had operated near the site since at least the middle of the 16th century.
The first Battersea Bridge was a toll bridge commissioned by John, Earl Spencer, who had recently acquired the rights to operate the ferry. Although a stone bridge was planned, difficulties in raising investment meant that a cheaper wooden bridge was built instead. Designed by Henry Holland, it was initially opened to pedestrians in November 1771, and to vehicle traffic in 1772. The bridge was poorly designed and dangerous both to its users and to passing shipping, and boats often collided with it. To reduce the dangers to shipping, two piers were removed and the sections of the bridge above them were strengthened with iron girders.
Although dangerous and unpopular, the bridge was the last surviving wooden bridge on the Thames in London, and was the subject of paintings by many significant artists such as J. M. W. Turner, John Sell Cotman and James McNeill Whistler, including Whistler's Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, and his controversial Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket.
In 1879 the bridge was taken into public ownership, and in 1885 demolished and replaced with the existing bridge, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and built by John Mowlem & Co. The narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it is one of London's least busy Thames bridges. The location on a bend in the river makes the bridge a hazard to shipping, and it has been closed many times due to collisions.
History of Battersea Bridge:
Chelsea (Old English Cealchyð, chalk wharf), about 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Westminster on the north bank of the River Thames, has existed as a settlement since at least Anglo-Saxon times. The Thames at this point bends through a sharp angle from a south-north to an east-west flow, and the slow-moving and relatively easily fordable river here is popularly believed to be the site of Julius Caesar's crossing of the Thames during the 54 BC invasion of Britain. Chelsea enjoyed good road and river connections to the seat of government at Westminster and the commercial centre of the City of London since at least the 14th century. It was a centre of the British porcelain industry, and a major producer of baked goods – at peak periods almost 250,000 chelsea buns per day were sold.[6] By the 18th century it had large numbers of very prosperous residents.
Battersea, listed as Patricesy (St Peter's Water) in the Domesday Book and first mentioned in records of 693 AD,[7][8] on the south bank of the river opposite Chelsea, was by contrast low and marshy land, prone to flooding. Conditions were ideal for farming asparagus and lavender, and a small market town grew in the area based on the asparagus and lavender industries.
Although Chelsea and Battersea had been linked by ferry since at least 1550, the nearest fixed links between the two were Putney Bridge, 2 1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) upstream and opened in 1729, and Westminster Bridge, 3 miles (4.8 km) downstream, opened in 1746. In 1763 John, Earl Spencer, purchased the manor of Battersea, and consequently acquired ownership of the ferry service between Chelsea and Battersea.
The ferry was old and somewhat dangerous, and in 1766 Spencer formed the Battersea Bridge Company and sought and obtained Parliamentary consent to build "a fine stone bridge" across the Thames.[5] The bridge was to be built between Cheyne Walk and Battersea, at the point where the river's course turns sharply east towards Westminster, at a projected cost of £83,000 (about £10,298,000 as of 2013). The Earl had anticipated that many local residents would invest in the project, but soon found that there was widespread scepticism about the scheme. Only 15 investors, including the Earl himself, were willing to invest, and a total of only £17,662 (about £2,080,000 as of 2013) was raised, far less than was needed to finance the ambitious project.
