Tower Bridge Under Construction

Tower bridge is one of the defining landmarks on London’s skyline, and when it was built back in the 19th Century it was an amazing feat of engineering. The brief was to create a river crossing which didn’t disrupt the flow of London’s busy river traffic, hence the bascules which lift to allow ships to pass underneath. It look 432 construction workers eight years to build it and, somewhat surprisingly judging by these photos, there were only 10 fatalities during the whole process.

The bridge wasn’t always the fetching shade of light blue that it is painted today. Originally the bridge was a dark brown colour. It was even painted red white and blue for the Queen’s jubilee in 1974!

Above is a photo of Tower Bridge in 1905 – just look how the skyline has changed over the last century compared to the modern photo below!

Image sources:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tower_Bridge_in_the_1890s#/media/File:Tower_Bridge_III._(open)_London_England.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tower_Bridge_in_the_1890s#/media/File:%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%83%D1%8D%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Construction_of_Tower_Bridge#/media/File:Tower_Bridge_(nearly).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puente_de_la_Torre,_Londres,_Inglaterra,_2014-08-11,_DD_092.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tower_bridge_works_1892.jpg