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Tower Bridge and London Bridge: clearing the mix up

The image of Tower Bridge’s grand castle-like Towers and raising bascules make it the most recognised bridge in the UK, possibly even in the world. However, many confuse it with London Bridge. An easy mistake to make, but one we can help you with!

London Bridge is the oldest river crossing in London, bringing river and road traffic together. It was rebuilt multiple times, from timber to stone and concrete and steel. London Bridge was actually the sole crossing of the Thames until the construction of Putney Bridge in 1729.

By 1870s, around a million people were living east of London Bridge, so getting across it could take hours. Tower Bridge came out of this need for a new river crossing, and was completed in 1894. Its Neo-Gothic design was chosen to blend with the Tower of London, a request by Queen Victoria.

We clear up the mix below, with details about Tower Bridge and London Bridge, where these are located, the distance between them, and many more interesting facts of both structures.

A brief history of Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge stands as it was built in 1894.

It may look a lot older than its 130 years but that was all part of Sir Horace Jones and Sir John Wolfe Barry ’s plan. Their aim was for the Bridge to blend in with the Tower of London, and not be an eyesore.

Who knew this landmark would actually become the symbol of London it is today?

The Götheborg of Sweden crossing Tower Bridge in June 2022 © Edward Hasler

A brief history of London Bridge 

London Bridge, as we know it today, was opened to traffic by The Late Queen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973.

Now made of concrete and steel, it replaced a 19th century stone arched bridge designed by Scottish civil engineer John Rennie, which in turn succeeded a 600-year-old stone-built structure.

This 600-year-old stone-built bridge was preceded by a number of timber bridges, the first of which was constructed by the Romans. 

Where are they located?

Tower Bridge and London Bridge are located next to each other in the Pool of London , on the River Thames.

Tower Bridge spans between the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Southwark, near the Tower of London and the Old City Hall.

London Bridge, meanwhile, is slightly upriver, spanning the Thames from the City of London to Southwark. 

London Bridge station is served by the Jubilee and Northern lines of the London Underground, and National Rail trains. Several bus routes will take you to Tower Bridge, including the famous 78 .

How far apart are Tower Bridge and London Bridge?

Tower Bridge and London Bridge are just over half a mile (approx. 1km) of each other.

You can walk from Tower Bridge to London Bridge in less than 15 minutes.

It's a pleasant walk, particularly if you take The Queen's Walk route, with breathtaking views of the Thames, HMS Belfast  (pictured), The Shard, and, of course, of Tower Bridge itself.

Can I visit inside Tower Bridge?

Yes, you can! Tower Bridge is a visitor attraction, open from 9:30 to 18:00 (last entry is 17:00).

You can come inside and explore the Towers, high-level Walkways, Glass Floors and Victorian Engine Rooms.

The panoramic views of London are unique, 42 metres above the Thames and 33.5 metres above the road level.

How long does it take to see inside Tower Bridge?

We suggest you to allow 60-90 minutes for you to explore inside Tower Bridge.

Your timed entry ticket includes a visit to the Towers, the high-level Walkways, Glass Floors and Victorian Engine Rooms.

You can also book a guided tour of Tower Bridge with one of our accredited guides, which last approximately 90 minutes.

Was London Bridge sold instead of Tower Bridge?

In 1967, the City of London was looking for someone to buy a dismantled London Bridge. American entrepreneur Robert Paxton McCulloch placed the winning bid of £1.02 million ($2.4 million at the time) on 18 April 1968. Each of the bridge’s 10,276 exterior granite blocks were numbered and then shipped to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. 

The construction started on 23 September 1968 and the foundation stone was laid by the Sir Gilbert Inglefield, then the Lord Mayor of London. The work was completed three years later and Lake Havasu City’s London Bridge opened on 10 October 1971 with a parade of marching bands, fireworks, hot air balloons and skydivers.

Contrary to the popular rumour, McCulloch was not under the impression that he was purchasing Tower Bridge. The urban legend was vehemently denied by the tycoon and by Ivan Luckin, of the City’s Common Council, who arranged the sale. 

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History of London Bridge: The Origins of the Bridge House - Yard and Bridge House Estates; a review of their early history as civic and religious institutions.

The essay covers the earliest period of London Bridge's organisational development culminating in its control by the City of London and explores the relationship of its religious status and its civic status. The discussion explores the earliest known charters relating to the Bridge and the Bridge House and offers new interpretations of these as well as providing a revised explanation of the relationship between religious guilds and the King and the City commune as well as the role of the religious foundation related to the Bridge Chapel and proposes the initiation of the stone Bridge is related to the Becket cult. The paper proposes a new chronology of these events taking into account the archaeological research of the late 1980s redevelopments on the site of the mediaeval Bridge at Southwark. Appendices discuss Unwin's ascription of certain 'adulterine guilds'; the demise and survival of the Bridge Chapel; and provides a revised list of the earliest Bridge Wardens in a coherent sequence.

Related Papers

The ancient trust that owns and repairs London Bridge and four other Thames bridges, the Bridge House Estates, has long used a symbol quite distinct from others of the City of London. Previously it was thought to have been commissioned in the Stuart period but the author has traced its origins and use beyond this to the Tudor Reformation. It has since been adopted by Southwark institutions because of the close association of the trust and the transpontine area.

Early Medieval Atlas Projects

Eljas Oksanen , Stuart Brookes

This Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database collects together information on bridges and on fording points attested in the documentary records and in archaeological surveys in England to the middle of the thirteenth century. By bringing together documentary references, archaeological material and onomastic information this database provides a comprehensive digital resource for the study of this key aspect of the medieval English transport and communications infrastructure. It is part of the Leverhulme Trust funded project 'Travel and Communications in Anglo-Saxon England' conducted at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham. Modern scholarship, including the outcomes of the Travel and Communications project, has shown that the overall shape of the pre-Modern English overland transport network was fundamentally in place by the Central Middle Ages. Any road system in a terrain and climate as wet as that of England must solve the challenges presented by the hydrological features of the landscape, and fords, bridges, causeways and ferry points were necessarily a key aspect of the experience of historical travel. The great bulk of medieval bridge-sites and fording points in England had been established by the middle of the thirteenth century. The preceding generations had witnessed enormous economic growth and an unprecedented increase in the population. The accompanying efforts to improve the road transport infrastructure fell especially on improvements of river crossings and the construction of new bridges. In aggregate these constitute the most substantial investment made to the overland transport network between the Roman period and the turnpikes of the seventeenth century. Bridges and river crossings anchored the English road network in space, and once established it proved remarkably durable. The medieval bridge-network appears to have been able to meet the transport requirements of the country up to the eve of the Industrial Revolution: the number of bridges in the mid-eighteenth century was approximately the same as in the Middle Ages. The building of bridges, in particular monumental stone bridges, was an economic and political statement. Bridges may have been built in response to contemporary needs but once in place they exerted a lasting influence on the shape and character of the local and regional transport network. Medieval bridges and river crossings were therefore a key long-term influence on the fundamental underpinnings of the urban, commercial and social development of the country. The database draws upon two major sources of information: surveys of historical bridges and place-name data. Among the former Edwyn Jervoise's four-volume Ancient Bridges series (Architectural Press, 1930-6) was the first comprehensive survey of historical bridges in England and Wales, many of which date to the Middle Ages. David Harrison's The Bridges of Medieval England: Transport and Society 400-1800 (Oxford University Press, 2004) provides a modern updated study of medieval bridge building and its socio-economic importance. Their work is enormously expanded by onomastic studies. Place-names elements such as brycg "bridge, causeway" and ford "river-crossing" capture vital information on the human historical landscape that is otherwise beyond the reach of direct written or archaeological sources.

Adam R Lucas

The heart of City Government from its establishment in the 12th century until the present-day, the Guildhall of the City of London remains perhaps our best link with the medieval city. This extensive history is, for the first time, considered in its entirety in this volume, an archaeological history of its site from the earliest postRoman occupation until the present day. Given the significance of the Guildhall it is surprising that the only previous scholarly work to consider it is Caroline Barron’s 1974 The Medieval Guildhall of London.(1) This publication is undoubtedly a natural successor to that earlier volume: indeed Professor Barron has acted as academic consultant to this study, and many of her original conclusions are borne out by the excavations detailed here.

John Schofield

This monograph brings together the archaeological and documentary evidence for a number of medieval and post-medieval secular properties and a parish church on four waterfront sites excavated in the City of London by the Museum of London in 1974–84: from west to east, Swan Lane (site A), Seal House (site B), New Fresh Wharf (site C) and Billingsgate Lorry Park (site D). Here the findings for the period 1100 to 1666 (the Great Fire of London) are presented. The waterfront excavations in London since 1972 have produced great advances in our knowledge about the nature of reclamation on the river bank and extension of properties into the river; the inclusion of a multitude of artefacts and pottery sherds in the reclamation and foreshore deposits are an unequalled catalogue of the material culture of medieval London; and the carpentry of the wooden revetment have consequences for study of medieval buildings which have otherwise not survived in London to be recorded. The excavation narrative is arranged in four consecutive periods from 1100 to 1666. The nature of London's waterfront, including its public buildings and Thames Street itself, is considered for each period; the developing relationship of the waterfront area to the rest of the medieval and Tudor City of London is also outlined. A first overall objective is to study the local environment and topography, the riverfront, its buildings and churches, to provide the setting for the lives of the people who lived and worked there. The wider area of the study is the waterfront south of Thames Street between the sites of the 11th-century All Hallows the Great church in the west (today just to the east of Cannon Street railway station viaduct) and the probably 10th-century Billingsgate dock in the east, a length of about 475m (about 1550ft). Just over half way long this length of waterfront, the north end of medieval London Bridge met the bank of the river and the street. The focus of research is two blocks of properties, eight tenements upstream of the Bridge, labelled for this study Tenements 1–8; and a second block downstream of the bridge, labelled Tenements 9–16. Generally it was only the parts nearest to Thames Street, which would have contained the most important buildings, which were excavated; documents, early views and maps provide context and setting. The excavations here of 1974 to 1984 are the main focus of this study, but more recent excavations of 2003–6 on some of the same properties and nearby are fitted into the narrative, with their complementary results. Between 1100 and 1666 the waterfront area of the City of London, between Thames Street and the River Thames, grew by extension into the river, until fossilised by the erection of stone river walls. By the end of the main periods of reclamation, around 1450, the new land south of the street could be up to 100m wide, formed by innumerable expansions on private properties, which had the effect of making indented inlets or docks for ships at Queenhithe and Billingsgate. Earth and rubbish were used to make the reclamation units, which are often dated by the dendrochronology of timbers used in the waterfront structures (Fig 1).

Hannah Stockton

Fortean Times 316, pp 54-5

London Bridge has, over the years, attracted to it a range of myths, including that of the “human foundation sacrifice” discussed by David Hambling in his article “In the shadow of the Shard” (FT314:56-7). But perhaps a little scepticism is in order in this case.

Robert Briggs

A long time in production, this paper examines the evidence relevant to the origins of two undated - but most probably early medieval - earthen causeways across the floodplain of the River Wey in Surrey. Although it does not reach a conclusion as to the exact age of the causeways, it does support previously-advanced arguments for their construction to have taken place at some point between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Along the way consideration is given to ritual deposition practices, the acquisition of estates by the saintly Archbishop Dunstan on behalf of religious houses with which he did not always have a strong connection (at least not one which is evident through the documentary sources), and the varying status and character of landlords in the Anglo-Norman period. At present there is no intention to seek out an avenue by means of which this essay can be published in print. I am on the cusp of commencing a related essay concentrating on (St) Dunstan's many purchases of land in the third quarter of the tenth century, with a particular focus on Send in Surrey, whose purchase around the year 968 is recorded in an Old English memorandum preserved in the archive of Westminster Abbey (= Sawyer 1447), but which was almost certainly bestowed upon another religious institution. Provided I can get copy to the editor by the end of April, this second essay may be printed in abbreviated form in next year's edition of the journal Surrey History.

David Millum

A summary of over a decade of surveys and excavations at the site of a previously unknown Roman period settlement at the southern end of Margary's RR14 road from London at Bridge Farm, Nr. Barcombe Mills, Lewes, East Sussex, England. Investigations at the site are ongoing and this paper is in the form of a project diary which will need many more years of research before a final written report can be produced. Currently evidence suggests activity at the site from mid/late 1st century through to lthe early 5th with a short-lasting double earthwork defensive enclosure constructed during the late 2nd/early 3rd century. The settlement appears to be based on commercial/strategic requirements more than purely residential providing a transfer hub from road to river at the junction od roads from London, Pevensey and Chichester. More details are available on the projet website: www.culverporject.co.uk.

H. Bailey, K. Kinsella, and D. Thomas (eds), Architectural Representation in Medieval England, Leeds Studies in English 48

Clifford Sofield

This article suggests a new approach to interpreting the archaeological remains of Anglo- Saxon buildings. It explores whether some of the ways people in Anglo-Saxon England formalized the architecture of their buildings, and ritualized their use, may have mirrored the processes they used to construct social identities. Specifically, it discusses the formal use of space in some buildings, especially those with high-status associations, and asks whether the ways in which space was formally organized reveals something about the mechanisms by which communities formed internal and external relationships, and kings constructed royal authority. It presents evidence for ritualized activity associated with the construction or demolition of buildings, and suggests that this evidence not only reveals how ‘lifecycles’ of buildings were perceived, but also how human lifecycles were perceived and constructed. By considering how people shaped buildings, perhaps we can learn how people shaped society.

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The truth about London Bridge

Flawed narratives should not distort historical memory of the planning for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II

L ondon Bridge, the operational codename for the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, monarch of fifteen nations and Head of the Commonwealth, was the most remarkable combined ceremonial, logistical and security operation in British history. Despite the incredible operational challenges, the events, watched by the whole world, came off flawlessly. This was not due to some inherent British genius for ceremonial (British ceremonial was in fact frequently disastrous before the 20th century) but instead due to the quiet, and secret, hard work of thousands of dedicated British public servants over the preceding 44 years. They were dukes and generals, secretaries and catering planners, civil servants and police officers. 

A revealing glimpse into the remarkable extent of the planning was offered by the awarding of an OBE in 2023 to “Dr Sarah Elizabeth Knight, Behavioural Scientist, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Ministry of Defence; For services to the State Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II”. London Bridge will be of abiding interest to historians, operational planners and security experts for decades to come. It is therefore important that an accurate record of the history of the operation is preserved.

In fact, documentary evidence shows such claims to be quite mistaken

On 18th January, the first key historical source for the operation was released: Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story , by Robert Hardman. This gripping work, marked by the remarkable official access and mastery of his subject for which Hardman is known, gives us remarkable insight into the successful first year of The King’s reign. However, in one important aspect, it paints a picture many of those involved simply cannot recognise. A key source — or sources — offered Hardman errors which risk reframing this collective effort as the triumph of one lone genius, who planned it brilliantly after starting with almost nothing, and then during the funeral saved the day when things started to go wrong. This remarkable story has already begun to solidify into “historical fact”; the Daily Telegraph ’s extracts of the relevant chapter in the book were headlined “The man who rescued Elizabeth II’s funeral from disaster”.

In fact, documentary evidence shows such claims to be quite mistaken, tarnishing both the historical record and the legacy of the London Bridge planners of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, whose plans were largely what ended up being executed long after their deaths. These include the father of the current Duke of Norfolk — the late Major-General Miles having been Earl Marshal before his son. We also have men like Brigadier John Ghika, a Guards Officer whose son, Major-General Sir Christopher Ghika, ended up commanding the procession in 2022, Colonel Sir Colin Cole, a Second World War veteran and herald, and countless others who are now either dead or retired.

It is therefore important to look at some of the comments made to Hardman, not least those by the present Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal. The Duke — best known to some for telling a court hearing that he shouldn’t be banned from driving after running a red light while on his mobile phone in front of a police car because he was the Earl Marshal and needed to be able to “locate venues” [sic!] for the Coronation — is a signal star of the chapters on London Bridge. 

The Duke of Norfolk’s role in Operation London Bridge, as set out in Hardman’s book, appears to maximise His Grace’s contributions while minimising those of others. Hardman states:

Miles Norfolk’s strategy for regal funeral-planning was to organise it through the heralds at the College of Arms. “After several years, the best they could come up with for my father was five sides of foolscap, which didn’t say much,” says Eddie… Together with [Edward] Norfolk, [Colonel] Mather worked out that one funeral would not be enough for the Queen. There would need to be a separate service of committal at Windsor … Miles Norfolk’s one lasting contribution to the plans for the death of the Sovereign was a name [London Bridge].

Was that the total of Duke Miles’ contributions? This extraordinary claim can be tested against the written records meticulously kept by a range of government departments.

Detailed London Bridge planning started in 1978, after the Silver Jubilee, and between then and Duke Miles’s death in 2002, he and his staff of officers, heralds, and civil servants extensively drew up the plans for The Queen’s funeral. Duke Miles himself put hundreds of hours of work into planning an event he knew he would not live to see; as he told one briefing: “I will probably be dead by the time it happens”. 

Major planning conferences were held with increasing frequency — first every five years, then every two and a half years, and these were on top of annual briefings and constant meetings. On 5 July 1990, for example, one such conference was held in great secrecy at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre with the top brass of the Royal Household, Army, Police and Civil Service in attendance. A transcript of the 16 page briefing which Duke Miles gave the attendees — a tour de force — survives. All of this has been meticulously documented in hundreds of pages of files of transcripts, minutes and letters. There are surviving full plans for The Queen’s funeral from 1978; a plan from that year is so extensive that Appendix 6 is on stationary requirements during London Bridge (each office should be supplied with “Books, Note (2 large, 2 small)” amongst many other items). Rather than being a brilliant innovation by Edward Norfolk, having services at both Westminster and Windsor appears in the operational plans from the 1980s.

Edward Norfolk should have recalled this. The surviving records show his constant presence at such planning meetings, shadowing his father, and his name appears on the circulation list for all such documents. To choose some examples at random, on 12 September 1989, he (then the Earl of Arundel) attended a meeting with British Rail at Wolverton “held in furtherance of the requirement of the Earl Marshal that he and the Earl of Arundel and others concerned be able to inspect the Royal Train with fittings in place of the Funeral Car (which was part of the Funeral Train)”. On 19 October 1989, he attended a meeting at New Scotland Yard with Duke Miles, Sir Colin Cole, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Peter Imbert, and the Assistant Commissioner to discuss the security arrangements for London Bridge. On 24 May 1991, Lord Arundel was present when Duke Miles and a group of navy, army and police officers reconnoitred Windsor to work through difficulties with the planned route of the gun carriage. 

When the regularly updated plans for The Queen’s funeral were distributed to the few who were entitled to see them, security was tight. All recipients had to confirm receipt and that they had destroyed previous versions. On 28 June 1990, an updated Earl Marshal’s Operational Instruction consisting of a sixty-page summary of the current London Bridge plans was distributed. On 5 July 1990, from 1 Battersea Bridge Road, Lord Arundel returned a form he had signed stating “I acknowledge safe receipt of the Earl Marshal’s Operation Instruction Copy No 2”. That sounds like rather more than five sides of foolscap. 

Edward Norfolk also appears to have allowed events from the Queen’s funeral itself to become jumbled in his mind. “As he had also feared,” Hardman writes:

… the coffin was 32 minutes late by the time it reached Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner for its rendezvous with the hearse … later, down at Windsor, cross words broke out in the marquee where those in the final procession were assembling. The Earl Marshal and his fellow marchers eventually arrived with 11 minutes to go before it was time to begin the last long march. There were about 200 people in the marquee and, instead of having 50 minutes for lunch, they had zero minutes… I knew there was a need for me to take command and lead from the front. I felt my father willing me on. I went outside to check with [Major General] Chris Ghika and the Army were all ready. So I told everyone to get out of the tent immediately. “The heralds were all exhausted and were trying to have lunch. I said, ‘Get out, we’re on parade.’ Someone said, ‘We need a pee.’ I said, ‘Pee on the lawn.’ Someone else was complaining about not eating. I said: ‘Too bad. The marchers duly followed the Earl Marshal’s orders and lined up on the road – with not a minute to spare. For, at that moment, bang on time, the police outriders suddenly appeared from around the corner, escorting the coffin along the Datchet Road.

This account makes no sense. If the events were running 32 minutes late by Wellington Arch, why would 200 senior officials of the military and royal household be sitting down hoping for a leisurely lunch the best part of an hour later in Windsor, not even having had the sense to use the loo in the meantime? In fact, multiple witnesses present suggest that Edward Norfolk’s account of saving the funeral at this point should not be the story that goes down in history.

Immediately after the delay had become apparent at Wellington Arch, it was made clear to the (70 or so — not 200) participants on the coaches to Windsor that their lunch break had become 15 minutes rather than 50. This proved ample time to use the lavatory, wolf down a sandwich and reassemble in formation. None of these witnesses recall Norfolk coming in to summon people out or arguments occurring. The idea that he told people to “pee on the lawn” seems eccentric — two multiple-occupancy toilet trailers were in place next to the marquee. The procession formed up in ample time; participants recall a 15 minute wait for the hearse and its outriders to arrive on Albert (not Datchet) Road. 

Much more could be said about the planning of London Bridge. Historians who write about it will have a wealth of documentary evidence far beyond that of any previous state occasion. But the promotion of erroneous narratives remains a threat to historical memory. To allow them to stand unchallenged would be an insult to the dedicated public servants to whom the credit for London Bridge is due, and to the Queen they served.

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Composed upon Westminster Bridge Summary & Analysis by William Wordsworth

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” is a sonnet written by William Wordsworth, arguably the most prominent of the English Romantic Poets. The title marks a specific place and time—a viewpoint over London’s River Thames during the Industrial Revolution—and is typical of Wordsworth, whose work often deals with both the power and fleeting nature of remembered moments. The poem’s speaker contemplates the city at dawn, seeing it for its breathtaking beauty while also acknowledging the industrial forces transforming it. When published, the poem appeared alongside sonnets that explicitly criticized industrial England.

• Read the full text of “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

The Full Text of “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

1 Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

2 Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

3 A sight so touching in its majesty:

4 This City now doth, like a garment, wear

5 The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

6 Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

7 Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

8 All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

9 Never did sun more beautifully steep

10 In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

11 Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

12 The river glideth at his own sweet will:

13 Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

14 And all that mighty heart is lying still!

“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” Summary

“composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802” themes.

Nature vs. Civilization

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Individuality vs. Community

Fleeting Beauty

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802”.

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning;

silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Lines 13-14

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” Symbols

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“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

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Personification

End-stopped line, “composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Mighty heart
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

Rhyme scheme, “composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802” speaker, “composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802” setting, literary and historical context of “composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802”, more “composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802” resources, external resources.

Ian McKellen Reads “Westminster Bridge” — Watch the British actor, of Lord of the Rings fame, read the poem in his own dramatic interpretation. 

Poetry Pairing — Read “Westminster Bridge” alongside a more recent travel article about London.

William Wordsworth's Biography — A medium-length biography of William Wordsworth, including information about his upbringing, political beliefs, poetic theories, and contemporary poets. 

William Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads — A long essay in which Wordsworth articulates his theory about what poetry should be, and explains how he goes about making it.

LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

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I Travelled Among Unknown Men

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

Lines Written in Early Spring

London, 1802

My Heart Leaps Up

Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She was a Phantom of Delight

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Garden Bridge: how the vision came crashing down

It was meant to be a pleasant, traffic-free thames crossing but five years and nearly £50m of public money later, it has come to nothing. in its spectacular unravelling, the bridge now offers us a masterclass in how not to achieve a goal, article bookmarked.

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What could be more pleasant than a garden bridge? Surely nothing could be less controversial than bucolic tranquillity combined with elegant functionality.

A traffic-free conduit across the Thames festooned with trees, flowers and grassy knolls sounds exactly like the kind of project that could be the centrepiece of innovative British architecture in London.

But five years after the Garden Bridge project was first announced, £46.4m of public money has been spent and nothing has been built.

Plans to construct the bridge, spanning the river between the Embankment and Temple, were officially scrapped in August 2017 due to lack of funds and persistent planning issues.

Instead of a modern monument celebrating sustainability and public space, the failed bridge has become symbolic of political and economic recklessness.

• Boris Johnson says he would have pushed on with Garden Bridge project
• MP reprimanded for use of Commons resources in Garden Bridge probe
• There will be a garden bridge in London after all
• Boris Johnson secretly discussed Apple having a store on Garden Bridge

Despite the eye-watering sums involved, Boris Johnson, who was largely responsible for the handling of the project during his tenure as Mayor of London, this week claimed he “did not waste a single penny” on it.

Questioned on the collapsed project by the London Assembly, Johnson was remorseless about the wasted millions, claimed he couldn’t remember making major decisions, tried to shift blame for the project’s failure to his successor, Sadiq Khan, hit out at journalists covering the scandal, and ended by saying he regretted not doing it all faster.

The whole thing is an expensive disaster, but in its spectacular unravelling the bridge now offers us a masterclass in how not to achieve something.

It has also provided a stage upon which we have been able to see individuals engineer the downfall of their own project as their relationships and motivations became clear.

Principle characters

The story of the bridge begins with three illustrious people: Joanna Lumley, actor and star of Absolutely Fabulous ; Thomas Heatherwick, artist and designer; and Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London.

Normally, bridges are built because they are needed. But in this instance it could be argued this was not the highest priority for our protagonists.

Lumley has been lobbying public figures for a garden bridge to be built for more than 20 years. She first mooted the idea of a “Diana memorial bridge” in the late 1990s, but it was not taken up.

Then in 2002 she returned with more detailed plans for the bridge, which were drawn up by the engineering group Arup. She presented the project to the then London Mayor Ken Livingstone, but again her idea was rejected.

It was not until Johnson had won his second term as Mayor that Lumley tried her luck again, and she did so in an extraordinary manner.

‘Please say yes’

In a handwritten letter penned just six days after Johnson’s victory, she sent “a thousand congratulations” adding: “Our cheers and shouts reached the rafters, soared above the Shard.” This was, she said, “wonderful news for London”.

She then outlined her vision for the Garden Bridge as a “green pedestrian bridge, with cycle tracks alongside, with container-grown trees, and beauty and practicality in equal measure”.

Importantly, she also mentioned that she already had a designer in mind. The letter said she and Thomas Heatherwick wanted to meet Johnson to discuss the idea “in the near future”. Such a bridge would bring “great loveliness” to the Thames, she wrote adding, “please say yes”.

The 2012 letter , revealed in a freedom of information request submitted by The Architects’ Journal , is a document proving that the three already had a strong idea of what such a bridge may look like.

In interviews regarding her ideas for the bridge, Lumley later described Johnson as being “largely amenable” to the bridge idea, and said that had not come as a surprise since she had known him since he was “four years old”.

Her relationship with Heatherwick as her potential bridge-maker also has a long history. Her 2004 autobiography mentions him as a designer “ of incomparable originality” who told her he would be “happy to work on the bridge”.

Bridge competition

As luck had it, in 2012 Transport for London (of which Johnson was chair) announced it was now considering plans for a “new footbridge in central London connecting the South Bank with the Temple area”.

The next usual step would then be to look through TfL’s list of trusted contractors for bridge-building. However, Heatherwick Studios was not on this list. The company had previously designed just one small bridge, which crosses a canal near Paddington.

But TfL departed from usual practice and instead invited three firms to submit designs for a potential bridge.

These were: Marks Barfield Architects, a builder of numerous prestigious bridges; Wilkinson Eyre, which has produced more than 25 bridges around the world including the Stirling Prize-winning Gateshead Millennium Bridge; and Heatherwick Studios.

Despite the stiff competition, Heatherwick Studios outscored the other contenders in the all-important “relevant design experience” category and won the contract.

• Johnson’s Garden Bridge project should be scrapped, review finds

“The scoring details didn’t really make sense to anyone,” Will Hurst, the managing editor of The Architect’s Journal , told The Independent . “They were just very, very weird.”

“But if you looked at it like they had this one designer in mind and had to make him win, then it made a bit more sense”.

This invitation-only style competition angered other experienced bridge-builders who would have relished the opportunity to build on such a prestigious site. Alistair Lenczner, who led the design of France’s celebrated Millau Viaduct, told a public hearing on the planned bridge that Heatherwick’s design was a “private garden platform pretending to be a bridge”.

A further cause of suspicion was that the invitation was only for “design advice to help progress ideas for a new footbridge crossing of the river Thames”, with n o mention of a garden.

Following an internal TfL audit into the process that cleared Johnson and TfL of any wrongdoing in the procurement process, the GLA oversight committee subsequently stepped in and condemned as being unfair that “Heatherwick was party to information that other bidders were not”.

At the time, Caroline Pidgeon, who sits on the GLA panel, said: “Nowhere in this does it mention a garden. If it had said, ‘We want a garden from x to y’, that might have meant it was a level playing field.”

Amid the apparent hoop-jumping necessary to award the contract to Heatherwick Studios, the Mayor’s office was also embroiled in fraught efforts to obtain the necessary planning permissions from various different bodies, as well as to obtain access to the millions of pounds required for the bombastic design.

Initially the cost of the project was put at £60m. By 2015, this had risen to £175m, and by April 2017 the overall projected costs had reached £200m.

This was supposedly going to be financed mostly through private donations, but with an additional £60m coming from the public purse.

The arrangement saw £30m secured through TfL – £20m of which was on a 50-year loan, while the Chancellor at the time, George Osborne, pledged the other £30m, which would come from the Department for Transport. In order to pledge the money, Osborne reportedly circumvented official channels and the DfT’s oversight.

At the time the National Audit Office described Osborne’s methods as “unorthodox”, and said had the normal channels been followed it was likely the money would not have been handed over as there were concerns about the scheme’s value and worries about whether it could be delivered.

At the time, Sir Amyas Morse, of the National Audit Office, said of the project : “It is important to note that the results would not in normal circumstances suggest a compelling value for money case ... The department’s own quantitative analysis suggested that there may or may not be a net benefit and, especially once concerns over deliverability were taken account of, the project might well not have met the department’s normal threshold for allocating its finite funds.”

‘The Apple Bridge’

Freedom of information requests by both Caroline Pidgeon and The Architects’ Journal revealed that in an outlandish attempt to drum up support for the bridge, Johnson, together with Heatherwick and Sir Edward Lister, Johnson’s former mayoral chief of staff, “jumped on a plane”, as Sir Edward put it, to go to San Francisco in an attempt to woo Apple into sponsoring the bridge in early 2013.

At the time, Johnson was very secretive about the escapade, refusing to say who he had met, listing the £10,000 taxpayer-funded trip as “private”, and also failing to report the trip in his monthly report to the London Assembly.

But transcripts of interviews from Dame Margaret Hodge’s 2017 assessment of the bridge quoted Sir Edward as saying: “The Mayor felt there was a fair chance that Apple might actually sponsor the whole bridge ... So we jumped on a plane.

“We were only there for 24 hours and flew back again. We went there, we talked through it all ... It was, ‘We do this, we call it the Apple Bridge and you pay for it, chum’. It was a real sales operation to try and sell it.”

Johnson was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, a total of £85m was pledged to the company from private backers indicating there was significant private interest in the project.

When the funding drive for the bridge was launched the same year as the San Francisco trip, Heatherwick distanced himself from desiring corporate branding. Speaking to The Independent at the time, he said: “We have had some philanthropic families already offering us tens of millions of pounds and it has inspired me to realise we don’t want a big name on it. There have been other projects in London where a very big sponsor has come in and done an advert across it for themselves; if we possibly can, we’d like to avoid the bridge having a gigantic corporate name across it.”

But, he warned: “This will only happened if British people decide to do something for themselves.”

However, as the projected costs rose, and the Garden Bridge Trust (the charity set up in the project’s name) spent more and more of the the public money it had secured, the “philanthropic families” apparently began to have doubts. By the time the estimated cost hit £200m and £26m had been spent by the trust, two large donors pulled out, reducing funding to £69m.

In August 2016 Mervyn Davies, chair of the trust, confirmed on BBC2’s Newsnight that it had raised some £69.5m of private funding. Combined with the £60m from TfL and the DfT, it meant the bridge was short of some £70m. Nonetheless, the trust maintained it could find the rest of the money.

A design for life

As the bridge’s various financial controversies guaranteed it headlines in a few newspapers, details of the designs had already begun to rankle in some quarters.

Local residents formed well-managed opposition group Thames Central Open Spaces to fight construction of the bridge which would cut across their views of the river.

Michael Ball, a local resident instrumental in setting up the group and who successfully brought a judicial review legal case against Lambeth Council’s grant of planning permission for the bridge, told The Independent : “The local community was concerned about the huge size of the bridge. What we saw was our views being trashed.” In comparison, he says, “there was never a glimmer of concern about the wobbly bridge [the Millenium Bridge] because it was just a streak”.

Despite being an ostensibly green project, with graphics depicting luscious foliage brimming over the copper-clad super structure, the building plans necessitated the felling of 30 mature trees alongside the river, prompting opponents to put up signs on the trees protesting the bridge.

The fact that the bridge would be closed at night and managed in the manner of a royal park also sparked anger over what many Londoners felt was the creeping privatisation of space.

Will Jennings, an artist and campaigner who launched a mock competition for “alternative” plans for the proposed river crossing, told The Independent : “The panorama from Waterloo Bridge has been there for 200 years. When we talk about open public open space, we’re not just talking about parks or streets but about emptiness as well, so that openness above the river – the widest point in the river – is public commons, as much as a park or a street.

“In essence that was going to be privatised. That was going to be largely blocked by the Garden Bridge. The Garden Bridge Trust kept saying the bridge was not going to block the view of St Paul’s, but what they particularly meant was that in one location, standing in the middle of Waterloo Bridge, you will see St Paul’s in between two bulbous lumps of trees. There’s a huge arrogance about it.”

A provision in the plans for the bridge also added that it would close for one day a month in order to hold private events to generate money that would feed back into the project.

After Lumley’s initial plan to include a bike lane, she reversed her views on cycle provision on the bridge, telling a Lambeth planning meeting in 2014 that she alone was responsible for that decision because it would stop the bridge being a “peaceful place to walk”.

Other concerns included the numbers of tourists who would visit the bridge. More than 7 million people a year were expected – a greater number than visit the Eiffel Tower – while just eight lavatories were included in the plans, thereby “condemning the whole of Waterloo into a public toilet”, according to one group.

But it was the opaque procurement and appointment processes that ultimately made people fight back against the bridge as a point of principle.

“When I first saw the designs I was really excited,” Will Hurst says. “But what’s below the waterline? When I started digging into it, I became more and more alarmed by what was underneath it all.

“The Garden Bridge was a confused project. It didn’t really know what it was trying to be.

“There was this attempt to show us that it was this fantastic attraction, but also a really important transport project that would bring massive transport benefits to pedestrians in London. But that didn’t really work because it wasn’t a transport project. It could never bring more than marginal benefits.”

“It sounded like it was going to be a place to get caught up in crowds most of the time.”

A question of upkeep

American novelist Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: “Everybody wants to create something great, something awe-inspiring, something that’ll give them a hell of a lot of attention. But nobody wants to do maintenance.”

He could have been reporting directly on Johnson and the troubles facing the Garden Bridge, as another black cloud hanging over the project was the cost of the upkeep, forecast at £3m-£3.5m a year.

With the investment gap of £70m, concerns mounted that the Mayor would have to sign a guarantee pledging to cover the cost with further public money if it could not be raised.

This, it emerged, is precisely what Johnson tried to sign off on his last day in office.

The recent revelation , which was the result of another FOI by The Architects’ Journal , shows the efforts to which Johnson wished to see through the plans before they could be examined by his successor.

Johnson wrote: “I have reviewed the Garden Bridge Trust’s draft operations and maintenance business plan and I am satisfied that it represents a satisfactory funding strategy to operate and maintain the Garden Bridge for at least the first five years from its completion.

“Therefore, I am content for you to exercise the authority delegated under the terms [of the earlier mayoral decisions].”

Martin Clarke, the executive director of resources for the GLA, did not sign off the document.

Caroline Pidgeon described Johnson’s actions as “extraordinary”.

“During his last hours in office, Boris Johnson was desperately trying to force through his beloved Garden Bridge when officers at City Hall had serious concerns,” she told The Architects’ Journal .

It’s business time

For significant infrastructure projects such as this, an essential part of the process is assessing the economic case for the provision of funding.

In this case, the DfT funding – £30m of public money – was only provided by George Osborne subject to the business case .

This sounds sensible. But despite the project having already been awarded to Heatherwick and Arup in 2013, and design work well under way with millions spent, the business case was only undertaken in May 2014.

Retrofitting the benefits to a project already in progress as a means to justify investment is unsurprisingly ineffective.

A subsequent 44-page review into the business case, self-commissioned by design and construction consultancy Fourth Street’s Dan Anderson – a campaigner against the bridge – concluded that “the business model is flawed, and the business plan targets are optimistic at best, but more likely unachievable”.

Who is Heatherwick?

Much has been written about Thomas Heatherwick, the designer championed by Lumley and the man behind the plans for the appearance of the bridge. This is for good reason: his projects have been integral parts of London’s recent history, his two best-known projects being the Olympic Cauldron whose flames opened the 2012 games in the capital, and also the revamped Routemaster bus, which was another pet project of Boris Johnson’s.

Heatherwick’s Cauldron design was the subject of a claim over the originality of the work, which was settled out of court in 2014.

His new Routemaster bus gained notoriety for overheating passengers and for causing more pollution than its predecessor because of unreliable hybrid batteries. Each bus cost over £350,000 – twice as much as a standard model. The design was discontinued last year.

A recent New Yorker profile of the designer painted an unflattering portrait, pointing out that he had described his own design for the Garden Bridge as “extraordinary”.

“It’s such a shame,” Heatherwick told the journalist when asked about the bridge. “I got an email saying, ‘This is a vanity project blocking a view of St Paul’s Cathedral’! And you go, ‘I wonder what the biggest vanity project in the city ever was? Probably St Paul’s!’”

His studio is currently working on a conical honeycomb-like structure in New York known as The Vessel.

During Johnson’s recent quizzing by the London Assembly, the former Mayor apportioned blame for the failure of the bridge to go ahead to “abuse” of Heatherwick by The Architects’ Journal ’s Will Hurst.

“They’ve been connived at in The Architects’ Journal , which has published a stream of abuse of these individuals, which it is motivated to the best of my knowledge by a dislike that The Architects’ Journal journalist concerned had for Thomas Heatherwick, who is not conceived of as being a proper architect, and is therefore somehow worthy of abuse,” Johnson said.

Speaking to The Independent two days ahead of Johnson’s appearance, Hurst predicted such an accusation and said of Heatherwick: “He won our Contribution to the Profession Award a few years back. So to those who say ‘ The Architects’ Journal only writes about this because architects are jealous of Heatherwick’, that’s utter nonsense, we can prove it from our own awards.”

But Hurst points out that Heatherwick has been caught out. “He went on the national press, on BBC radio and Newsnight and said he’s not a part of the Garden Bridge Trust, just the designer. But then we find out he’s the sole founding member of the Garden Bridge Trust, and not only that but he not only headhunted the chief executive from his own firm, Bee Emmott, who was seconded to the trust, but he also headhunted the chair, Mervyn Davies, and the deputy chair, Paul Morrell.

“So the trust starts to look like the creation of Thomas Heatherwick, but he’s telling the public, ‘I’m a designer, I’m not a member of the trust, I’m not a part of the trust’. So there’s a problem there. But I would balance that by saying he’s a superb lobbyist. Those are not illegitimate business skills.”

At the time a spokesperson for Heatherwick Studio said: “It’s well known that the studio’s role on the Garden Bridge was first as paid designer, and second as voluntary advocate.

“The Garden Bridge Trust chose to give Thomas Heatherwick an honorary membership in recognition of this advocacy. In reality, this was little more than a badge. Of course we had no power to appoint anyone or take decisions on behalf of anyone but ourselves.”

Despite this statement, Mervyn Davies had already told Dame Margaret Hodge that Heatherwick had asked him whether he “would be interested in being the chairman” prior to the establishment of the charity.

The Independent approached Heatherwick for a new comment but did not receive one at the time of publication.

Khan’t do it, won’t do it

The election of Sadiq Khan to City Hall did not immediately spell the demise of the bridge. Initially he did not oppose it, but said he would refuse to spend further money on the project.

In September 2016 he ordered a formal review into the finances of the scheme and appointed Dame Margaret Hodge to investigate the value of the bridge. “Once that report was out they were never going to recover from that,” Hurst says.

Hodge’s damning report recommended the project be scrapped at a total cost to taxpayers of £46.4m because allowing the project to continue risked even greater expense.

The review also confirmed the costs of the project were escalating, that the purpose of the bridge remained unclear, that the business case for the bridge was flimsy and that the procurement process in which Heatherwick Studio won the contract was “not open, fair or competitive”.

Soon afterwards, in April 2017, Khan said he would not provide the required guarantee for the future running costs of the bridge, because of the concerns over the project’s financial viability highlighted in the report.

As the guarantee was a condition of the construction, the project came to an end.

The Garden Bridge Trust, set up in October 2013, had spent £37.4m in less than four years without a spade touching the ground. The Government’s agreement to underwrite the financial costs in the event of collapse mean the eventual bill will likely reach £46.4m, the Hodge report estimated.

Asked for an interview for this piece, Bee Emmott, the director of the Garden Bridge Trust, said: “The project was cancelled in August following the Mayor’s decision not to provide the mayoral guarantee. Since then, the trustees have been focused on the process of closing the project and winding up the trust.”

She also forwarded a link to Mervyn Davies’s response to Khan’s decision on the London Evening Standard website, in which he describes it as “disappointing and unexpected”.

The Independent has contacted representatives for Joanna Lumley for comment. Lumley has rarely spoken directly to the press about the project, but in April 2017 she described Khan’s decision not to provide the essential mayoral guarantee as “absolutely shattering, devastating”.

Speaking to The Times , whose owner Rupert Murdoch was among the bridge’s supporters, Lumley said: “The negativity troubles me in my heart. I hope we’re not turning into the sort of country that instantly says no before it considers saying yes. A nation that just pulls the shutters down. The silent majority still love the bridge, but of course they were not asked what they think.”

A fascinating element of the story of the Garden Bridge was that it collapsed under the weight of its own problems rather than due to pressure from external forces.

While there was undoubtedly scrutiny from campaign groups, MPs and some pockets of the media, ultimately it was those involved with the project who made its failure inevitable and who wasted such a colossal sum of money and built nothing.

“It’s outrageous that no one is being held accountable,” says Will Hurst. “An important part of that is that there is no effective oversight of Transport for London – this body that spends billions and billions of pounds of our money every year.

“The London Assembly has done a really good job on the Garden Bridge, but it doesn’t have the power to hold people to account. It can hold hearings and embarrass people, but it doesn’t have the power of a select committee for example.

“It’s absolutely scandalous,” he adds.

Michael Ball summed up the bridge’s failure succinctly: “At the end of the day there were circles they couldn’t square and they were inherent to the project. They should have been flagged up early in the project. Someone should have said, ‘hang on a minute, this is a nice idea but there are really big problems’.”

But is that the end of the Garden Bridge? Last week Johnson – who has recently said a bridge should be built to France – told the London Assembly he felt “miserable” the bridge had not been built. “Frankly, one day I hope the whole project is revived. I think it will be,” he added.

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London Bridge facts for kids

London Bridge refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark , in central London since Roman times . The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. In addition to the roadway, for much of its history, the broad medieval bridge supported an extensive built up area of homes and businesses part of the City's Bridge ward and its southern end in Southwark was guarded by a large stone City gateway. The medieval bridge was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by the Roman founders of London ( Londinium ) around 50 AD.

The current bridge stands at the western end of the Pool of London and is positioned 30 metres (98 ft) upstream from previous alignments. The approaches to the medieval bridge were marked by the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr on the northern bank and by Southwark Cathedral on the southern shore. Until Putney Bridge opened in 1729, London Bridge was the only road crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston upon Thames . London Bridge has been depicted in its several forms, in art, literature, and songs, including the nursery rhyme " London Bridge Is Falling Down ", and the epic poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot .

The modern bridge is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, an independent charity of medieval origin overseen by the City of London Corporation. It carries the A3 road, which is maintained by the Greater London Authority . The crossing also delineates an area along the southern bank of the River Thames, between London Bridge and Tower Bridge , that has been designated as a business improvement district.

Roman bridges

Early medieval bridges, old london bridge (1209–1831), sale to robert mcculloch, modern london bridge (1973–present).

The abutments of modern London Bridge rest several metres above natural embankments of gravel, sand and clay. From the late Neolithic era the southern embankment formed a natural causeway above the surrounding swamp and marsh of the river's estuary ; the northern ascended to higher ground at the present site of Cornhill . Between the embankments, the River Thames could have been crossed by ford when the tide was low, or ferry when it was high. Both embankments, particularly the northern, would have offered stable beachheads for boat traffic up and downstream – the Thames and its estuary were a major inland and Continental trade route from at least the 9th century BC.

There is archaeological evidence for scattered Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement nearby, but until a bridge was built there, London did not exist. A few miles upstream , beyond the river's upper tidal reach, two ancient fords were in use. These were apparently aligned with the course of Watling Street , which led into the heartlands of the Catuvellauni , Britain's most powerful tribe at the time of Caesar's invasion of 54 BC. Some time before Claudius 's conquest of AD 43, power shifted to the Trinovantes , who held the region northeast of the Thames Estuary from a capital at Camulodunum , nowadays Colchester in Essex. Claudius imposed a major colonia at Camulodunum, and made it the capital city of the new Roman province of Britannia. The first London Bridge was built by the Romans as part of their road-building programme, to help consolidate their conquest.

It is possible that Roman military engineers built a pontoon type bridge at the site during the conquest period (AD   43). A bridge of any kind would have given a rapid overland shortcut to Camulodunum from the southern and Kentish ports, along the Roman roads of Stane Street and Watling Street (now the A2 ). The Roman roads leading to and from London were probably built around AD   50, and the river-crossing was possibly served by a permanent timber bridge. On the relatively high, dry ground at the northern end of the bridge, a small, opportunistic trading and shipping settlement took root and grew into the town of Londinium . A smaller settlement developed at the southern end of the bridge, in the area now known as Southwark . The bridge may have been destroyed along with the town in the Boudican revolt (AD 60), but Londinium was rebuilt and eventually, became the administrative and mercantile capital of Roman Britain. The bridge offered uninterrupted, mass movement of foot, horse, and wheeled traffic across the Thames, linking four major arterial road systems north of the Thames with four to the south. Just downstream of the bridge were substantial quays and depots, convenient to seagoing trade between Britain and the rest of the Roman Empire .

With the end of Roman rule in Britain in the early 5th century, Londinium was gradually abandoned and the bridge fell into disrepair. In the Anglo-Saxon period , the river became a boundary between the emergent, mutually hostile kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex . By the late 9th century, Danish invasions prompted at least a partial reoccupation of the site by the Saxons. The bridge may have been rebuilt by Alfred the Great soon after the Battle of Edington as part of Alfred's redevelopment of the area in his system of burhs , or it may have been rebuilt around 990 under the Saxon king Æthelred the Unready to hasten his troop movements against Sweyn Forkbeard , father of Cnut the Great . A skaldic tradition describes the bridge's destruction in 1014 by Æthelred's ally Olaf , to divide the Danish forces who held both the walled City of London and Southwark. The earliest contemporary written reference to a Saxon bridge is c.  1016 , when chroniclers mention how Cnut 's ships bypassed the crossing during his war to regain the throne from Edmund Ironside .

Following the Norman conquest in 1066, King William I rebuilt the bridge. It was repaired or replaced by King William II , destroyed by fire in 1136, and rebuilt in the reign of Stephen . Henry II created a monastic guild, the "Brethren of the Bridge", to oversee all work on London Bridge. In 1163, Peter of Colechurch, chaplain and warden of the bridge and its brethren, supervised the bridge's last rebuilding in timber.

After the murder of his former friend and later opponent Thomas Becket , Archbishop of Canterbury , the penitent King Henry II commissioned a new stone bridge in place of the old, with a chapel at its centre dedicated to Becket as martyr . The archbishop had been a native Londoner, born at Cheapside, and a popular figure. The Chapel of St Thomas on the Bridge became the official start of pilgrimage to his Canterbury shrine ; it was grander than some town parish churches, and had an additional river-level entrance for fishermen and ferrymen. Building work began in 1176, supervised by Peter of Colechurch. The costs would have been enormous; Henry's attempt to meet them with taxes on wool and sheepskins probably gave rise to a later legend that London Bridge was built on wool packs. In 1202, before Colechurch's death, Isembert, a French monk who was renowned as a bridge builder, was appointed by King John to complete the project. Construction was not finished until 1209. There were houses on the bridge from the start; this was a normal way of paying for the maintenance of a bridge, though in this case it had to be supplemented by other rents and by tolls. From 1282 two bridge wardens were responsible for maintaining the bridge, heading the organization known as the Bridge House. The only two collapses occurred when maintenance had been neglected, in 1281 (five arches) and 1437 (two arches). In 1212 , perhaps the greatest of the early fires of London broke out, spreading as far as the chapel and trapping many people.

The bridge was about 926 feet (282 metres) long, and had nineteen piers linked by nineteen arches and a wooden drawbridge. There were 'starlings' around the piers to protect them (they had deeper piles than the piers themselves). The bridge, including the part occupied by houses, was from 20 to 24 feet (6.1 to 7.3 metres) wide. The roadway was mostly around 15 feet (4.6 metres) wide, varying from about 14 feet to 16 feet, except that it was narrower at defensive features (the stone gate, the drawbridge and the drawbridge tower) and wider south of the stone gate. The houses occupied only a few feet on each side of the bridge. They received their main support either from the piers, which extended well beyond the bridge itself from west to east, or from 'hammer beams' laid from pier to pier parallel to the bridge. It was the length of the piers which made it possible to build quite large houses, up to 34 feet (10 metres) deep.

The numerous starlings restricted the river's tidal ebb and flow. The difference in water levels on the two sides of the bridge could be as much as 6 feet (1.8 m), producing ferocious rapids between the piers resembling a weir . Only the brave or foolhardy attempted to "shoot the bridge" – steer a boat between the starlings when in flood – and some were drowned in the attempt. The bridge was "for wise men to pass over, and for fools to pass under." The restricted flow also meant that in hard winters the river upstream was more susceptible to freezing.

The number of houses on the bridge reached its maximum in the late fourteenth century, when there were 140. Subsequently, many of the houses, originally only 10 to 11 feet wide, were merged, so that by 1605 there were 91. Originally they are likely to have had only two storeys, but they were gradually enlarged. In the seventeenth century, when there are detailed descriptions of them, almost all had four or five storeys (counting the garrets as a storey); three houses had six storeys. Two-thirds of the houses were rebuilt from 1477 to 1548. In the seventeenth century, the usual plan was a shop on the ground floor, a hall and often a chamber on the first floor, a kitchen and usually a chamber and a waterhouse (for hauling up water in buckets) on the second floor, and chambers and garrets above. Approximately every other house shared in a 'cross building' above the roadway, linking the houses either side and extending from the first floor upwards.

All the houses were shops, and the bridge was one of the City of London's four or five main shopping streets. There seems to have been a deliberate attempt to attract the more prestigious trades. In the late fourteenth century more than four-fifths of the shopkeepers were haberdashers, glovers, cutlers , bowyers and fletchers or from related trades. By 1600 all of these had dwindled except the haberdashers, and the spaces were filled by additional haberdashers, by traders selling textiles and by grocers. From the late seventeenth century there was a greater variety of trades, including metalworkers such as pinmakers and needle makers, sellers of durable goods such as trunks and brushes, booksellers and stationers.

The three major buildings on the bridge were the chapel, the drawbridge tower and the stone gate, all of which seem to have been present soon after the bridge's construction. The chapel was last rebuilt in 1387–1396, by Henry Yevele , master mason to the king. Following the Reformation , it was converted into a house in 1553. The drawbridge ceased to be opened in the 1470s and in 1577–1579 the tower was replaced by Nonsuch House—a pair of magnificent houses. Its architect was Lewis Stockett, Surveyor of the Queen's Works, who gave it the second classical facade in London (after Somerset House in the Strand). The stone gate was last rebuilt in the 1470s, and later took over the function of displaying the heads of traitors. The heads were dipped in tar and boiled to preserve them against the elements, and were impaled on pikes. The head of William Wallace was the first recorded as appearing, in 1305, starting a long tradition. Other famous heads on pikes included those of Jack Cade in 1450, Thomas More in 1535, Bishop John Fisher in the same year, and Thomas Cromwell in 1540. In 1598, a German visitor to London, Paul Hentzner, counted over 30 heads on the bridge:

On the south is a bridge of stone eight hundred feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon twenty piers of square stone, sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge. Upon this is built a tower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed on iron spikes: we counted above thirty.

The last head was installed in 1661; subsequently heads were placed on Temple Bar instead, until the practice ceased.

There were two multi-seated public latrines , but they seem to have been at the two ends of the bridge, possibly on the riverbank. The one at the north end had two entrances in 1306. Neither of the latrines is recorded after 1591.

In 1578–1582 a Dutchman, Peter Morris, created a waterworks at the north end of the bridge. Water wheels under the two northernmost arches drove pumps that raised water to the top of a tower, from which wooden pipes conveyed it into the city. In 1591 water wheels were installed at the south end of the bridge to grind corn.

In 1633 fire destroyed the houses on the northern part of the bridge. The gap was only partly filled by new houses, with the result that there was a firebreak that prevented the Great Fire of London (1666) spreading to the rest of the bridge and to Southwark. The Great Fire destroyed the bridge's waterwheels, preventing them from pumping water to fight the fire.

For nearly 20 years, only sheds replaced the burnt buildings. They were replaced In the 1680s, when almost all the houses on the bridge were rebuilt. The roadway was widened to 20 feet (6.1 metres) by setting the houses further back and was increased in height from one storey to two. The new houses extended further back over the river, which would cause trouble later. In 1695, the bridge had 551 inhabitants. From 1670, attempts were made to keep traffic in each direction to one side, at first through a keep-right policy and from 1722, through a keep-left policy. This has been suggested as one possible origin for the practice of traffic in Britain driving on the left.

A fire in September 1725 destroyed all the houses south of the stone gate; they were rebuilt. The last houses to be built on the bridge were designed by George Dance the Elder in 1745, but these buildings had begun to subside within a decade. The London Bridge Act 1756 (29 Geo. 2. c. 40) gave the City Corporation the power to purchase all the properties on the bridge so that they could be demolished and the bridge improved. While this work was underway, a temporary wooden bridge was constructed to the west of London Bridge. It opened in October 1757 but caught fire and collapsed in the following April. The old bridge was reopened until a new wooden construction could be completed a year later. To help improve navigation under the bridge, its two centre arches were replaced by a single wider span, the Great Arch, in 1759.

Demolition of the houses was completed in 1761 and the last tenant departed after some 550 years of housing on the bridge. Under the supervision of Dance the Elder, the roadway was widened to 46 feet (14 m) and a balustrade was added "in the Gothic taste" together with 14 stone alcoves for pedestrians to shelter in. However, the creation of the Great Arch had weakened the rest of the structure and constant expensive repairs were required in the following decades; this, combined with congestion both on and under bridge, often leading to fatal accidents, resulted in public pressure for a modern replacement.

London Bridge from Pepper Alley Stairs by Herbert Pugh , showing the appearance of London Bridge after 1762, with the new "Great Arch" at the centre

Old London Bridge by J. M. W. Turner , showing the new balustrade and the back of one of the pedestrian alcoves

One of the pedestrian alcoves from the 1762 renovation, now in Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets – a similar alcove from the same source can be seen at the Guy's Campus of King's College London

A section of balustrade from London Bridge, now at Gilwell Park in Essex

A relief of the Hanoverian Royal Arms from a gateway over the old London Bridge now forms part of the façade of the King's Arms pub, Southwark

New London Bridge (1831–1967)

In 1799, a competition was opened to design a replacement for the medieval bridge. Entrants included Thomas Telford ; he proposed a single iron arch span of 600 feet (180 m), with 65 feet (20 m) centre clearance beneath it for masted river traffic. His design was accepted as safe and practicable, following expert testimony. Preliminary surveys and works were begun, but Telford's design required exceptionally wide approaches and the extensive use of multiple, steeply inclined planes, which would have required the purchase and demolition of valuable adjacent properties.

A more conventional design of five stone arches, by John Rennie , was chosen instead. It was built 100 feet (30 m) west (upstream) of the original site by Jolliffe and Banks of Merstham, Surrey , under the supervision of Rennie's son . Work began in 1824 and the foundation stone was laid, in the southern coffer dam, on 15 June 1825.

The old bridge continued in use while the new bridge was being built, and was demolished after the latter opened in 1831. New approach roads had to be built, which cost three times as much as the bridge itself. The total costs, around £2.5 million (£180 million in 2021), were shared by the British Government and the Corporation of London.

Rennie's bridge was 928 feet (283 m) long and 49 feet (15 m) wide, constructed from Haytor granite. The official opening took place on 1 August 1831; King William IV and Queen Adelaide attended a banquet in a pavilion erected on the bridge. The northern approach road, King William Street, was renamed after the monarch.

In 1896 the bridge was the busiest point in London, and one of its most congested; 8,000 pedestrians and 900 vehicles crossed every hour. It was widened by 13 feet (4.0 m), using granite corbels. Subsequent surveys showed that the bridge was sinking an inch (about 2.5 cm) every eight years, and by 1924 the east side had sunk some three to four inches (about 9 cm) lower than the west side. The bridge would have to be removed and replaced.

Common Council of the City of London member Ivan Luckin put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled: "They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing." Subsequently, in 1968, Council placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. On 18 April 1968, Rennie's bridge was purchased by the Missourian entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for US$2,460,000. The claim that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressive Tower Bridge was denied by Luckin in a newspaper interview. Before the bridge was taken apart, each granite facing block was marked for later reassembly.

The blocks were taken to Merrivale Quarry at Princetown in Devon , where 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) were sliced off the inner faces of many, to facilitate their fixing. (Stones left behind were sold in an online auction when the quarry was abandoned and flooded in 2003.) 10,000 tons of granite blocks were shipped via the Panama Canal to California , then trucked from Long Beach to Arizona . They were used to face a new, purpose-built hollow core steel-reinforced concrete structure, ensuring the bridge would support the weight of modern traffic. The bridge was reconstructed by Sundt Construction at Lake Havasu City, Arizona , and was re-dedicated on 10 October 1971 in a ceremony attended by London's Lord Mayor and celebrities. The bridge carries the McCulloch Boulevard and spans the Bridgewater Channel, an artificial, navigable waterway that leads from the Uptown area of Lake Havasu City.

The current London Bridge was designed by architect Lord Holford and engineers Mott, Hay and Anderson. It was constructed by contractors John Mowlem and Co from 1967 to 1972, and opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973. It comprises three spans of prestressed-concrete box girders, a total of 833 feet (254 m) long. The cost of £4 million (£40.7 million in 2021), was met entirely by the Bridge House Estates charity. The current bridge was built in the same location as Rennie's bridge, with the previous bridge remaining in use while the first two girders were constructed upstream and downstream. Traffic was then transferred onto the two new girders, and the previous bridge demolished to allow the final two central girders to be added.

In 1984, the British warship HMS Jupiter collided with London Bridge, causing significant damage to both the ship and the bridge.

On Remembrance Day 2004, several bridges in London were furnished with red lighting as part of a night-time flight along the river by wartime aircraft. London Bridge was the one bridge not subsequently stripped of the illuminations, which are regularly switched on at night.

The current London Bridge is often shown in films, news and documentaries showing the throng of commuters journeying to work into the City from London Bridge Station (south to north). An example of this is actor Hugh Grant crossing the bridge north to south during the morning rush hour, in the 2002 film About a Boy .

On 11 July 2008, as part of the annual Lord Mayor 's charity appeal and to mark the 800th anniversary of Old London Bridge's completion in the reign of King John, the Lord Mayor and Freemen of the City drove a flock of sheep across the bridge, supposedly by ancient right.

After a 2017 terrorist attack on the bridge, security barriers were installed on the bridge to help isolate the pedestrian pavement from the road.

The nearest London Underground stations are Monument , at the northern end of the bridge, and London Bridge at the southern end. London Bridge station is also served by National Rail .

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'London Bridge is down': the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death

She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end. That’s why the palace has a plan.

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I n the plans that exist for the death of the Queen – and there are many versions, held by Buckingham Palace, the government and the BBC – most envisage that she will die after a short illness. Her family and doctors will be there. When the Queen Mother passed away on the afternoon of Easter Saturday, in 2002, at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, she had time to telephone friends to say goodbye, and to give away some of her horses. In these last hours, the Queen’s senior doctor, a gastroenterologist named Professor Huw Thomas, will be in charge. He will look after his patient, control access to her room and consider what information should be made public. The bond between sovereign and subjects is a strange and mostly unknowable thing. A nation’s life becomes a person’s, and then the string must break.

There will be bulletins from the palace – not many, but enough. “The Queen is suffering from great physical prostration, accompanied by symptoms which cause much anxiety,” announced Sir James Reid, Queen Victoria’s physician, two days before her death in 1901. “The King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close,” was the final notice issued by George V’s doctor, Lord Dawson, at 9.30pm on the night of 20 January 1936. Not long afterwards, Dawson injected the king with 750mg of morphine and a gram of cocaine – enough to kill him twice over – in order to ease the monarch’s suffering, and to have him expire in time for the printing presses of the Times, which rolled at midnight.

Her eyes will be closed and Charles will be king. His siblings will kiss his hands. The first official to deal with the news will be Sir Christopher Geidt, the Queen’s private secretary, a former diplomat who was given a second knighthood in 2014, in part for planning her succession.

Geidt will contact the prime minister. The last time a British monarch died, 65 years ago, the demise of George VI was conveyed in a code word, “Hyde Park Corner”, to Buckingham Palace, to prevent switchboard operators from finding out. For Elizabeth II, the plan for what happens next is known as “London Bridge.” The prime minister will be woken, if she is not already awake, and civil servants will say “London Bridge is down” on secure lines. From the Foreign Office’s Global Response Centre, at an undisclosed location in the capital, the news will go out to the 15 governments outside the UK where the Queen is also the head of state, and the 36 other nations of the Commonwealth for whom she has served as a symbolic figurehead – a face familiar in dreams and the untidy drawings of a billion schoolchildren – since the dawn of the atomic age.

For a time, she will be gone without our knowing it. The information will travel like the compressional wave ahead of an earthquake, detectable only by special equipment. Governors general, ambassadors and prime ministers will learn first. Cupboards will be opened in search of black armbands, three-and-a-quarter inches wide, to be worn on the left arm.

The rest of us will find out more quickly than before. On 6 February 1952, George VI was found by his valet at Sandringham at 7.30am. The BBC did not broadcast the news until 11.15am, almost four hours later. When Princess Diana died at 4am local time at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris on 31 August 1997, journalists accompanying the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, on a visit to the Philippines knew within 15 minutes. For many years the BBC was told about royal deaths first, but its monopoly on broadcasting to the empire has gone now. When the Queen dies, the announcement will go out as a newsflash to the Press Association and the rest of the world’s media simultaneously. At the same instant, a footman in mourning clothes will emerge from a door at Buckingham Palace, cross the dull pink gravel and pin a black-edged notice to the gates. While he does this, the palace website will be transformed into a sombre, single page, showing the same text on a dark background.

Screens will glow. There will be tweets. At the BBC, the “radio alert transmission system” (Rats), will be activated – a cold war-era alarm designed to withstand an attack on the nation’s infrastructure. Rats, which is also sometimes referred to as “royal about to snuff it”, is a near mythical part of the intricate architecture of ritual and rehearsals for the death of major royal personalities that the BBC has maintained since the 1930s. Most staff have only ever seen it work in tests; many have never seen it work at all. “Whenever there is a strange noise in the newsroom, someone always asks, ‘Is that the Rats?’ Because we don’t know what it sounds like,” one regional reporter told me.

All news organisations will scramble to get films on air and obituaries online. At the Guardian, the deputy editor has a list of prepared stories pinned to his wall. The Times is said to have 11 days of coverage ready to go. At Sky News and ITN, which for years rehearsed the death of the Queen substituting the name “Mrs Robinson”, calls will go out to royal experts who have already signed contracts to speak exclusively on those channels. “I am going to be sitting outside the doors of the Abbey on a hugely enlarged trestle table commentating to 300 million Americans about this,” one told me.

For people stuck in traffic, or with Heart FM on in the background, there will only be the subtlest of indications, at first, that something is going on. Britain’s commercial radio stations have a network of blue “obit lights”, which is tested once a week and supposed to light up in the event of a national catastrophe. When the news breaks, these lights will start flashing, to alert DJs to switch to the news in the next few minutes and to play inoffensive music in the meantime. Every station, down to hospital radio, has prepared music lists made up of “Mood 2” (sad) or “Mood 1” (saddest) songs to reach for in times of sudden mourning. “If you ever hear Haunted Dancehall (Nursery Remix) by Sabres of Paradise on daytime Radio 1, turn the TV on,” wrote Chris Price, a BBC radio producer, for the Huffington Post in 2011 . “Something terrible has just happened.”

Having plans in place for the death of leading royals is a practice that makes some journalists uncomfortable. “There is one story which is deemed to be so much more important than others,” one former Today programme producer complained to me. For 30 years, BBC news teams were hauled to work on quiet Sunday mornings to perform mock storylines about the Queen Mother choking on a fishbone. There was once a scenario about Princess Diana dying in a car crash on the M4.

These well-laid plans have not always helped. In 2002, when the Queen Mother died, the obit lights didn’t come on because someone failed to push the button down properly. On the BBC, Peter Sissons, the veteran anchor, was criticised for wearing a maroon tie. Sissons was the victim of a BBC policy change, issued after the September 11 attacks, to moderate its coverage and reduce the number of “category one” royals eligible for the full obituary procedure. The last words in Sissons’s ear before going on air were: “Don’t go overboard. She’s a very old woman who had to go some time.”

But there will be no extemporising with the Queen. The newsreaders will wear black suits and black ties. Category one was made for her. Programmes will stop. Networks will merge. BBC 1, 2 and 4 will be interrupted and revert silently to their respective idents – an exercise class in a village hall, a swan waiting on a pond – before coming together for the news. Listeners to Radio 4 and Radio 5 live will hear a specific formulation of words, “This is the BBC from London,” which, intentionally or not, will summon a spirit of national emergency.

The main reason for rehearsals is to have words that are roughly approximate to the moment. “It is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement,” said John Snagge, the BBC presenter who informed the world of the death of George VI. (The news was repeated seven times, every 15 minutes, and then the BBC went silent for five hours). According to one former head of BBC news, a very similar set of words will be used for the Queen. The rehearsals for her are different to the other members of the family, he explained. People become upset, and contemplate the unthinkable oddness of her absence. “She is the only monarch that most of us have ever known,” he said. The royal standard will appear on the screen. The national anthem will play. You will remember where you were.

W hen people think of a contemporary royal death in Britain, they think, inescapably, of Diana. The passing of the Queen will be monumental by comparison. It may not be as nakedly emotional, but its reach will be wider, and its implications more dramatic. “It will be quite fundamental,” as one former courtier told me.

Part of the effect will come from the overwhelming weight of things happening. The routine for modern royal funerals is more or less familiar (Diana’s was based on “Tay Bridge”, the plan for the Queen Mother’s). But the death of a British monarch, and the accession of a new head of state, is a ritual that is passing out of living memory: three of the Queen’s last four prime ministers were born after she came to the throne. When she dies, both houses of parliament will be recalled, people will go home from work early, and aircraft pilots will announce the news to their passengers. In the nine days that follow (in London Bridge planning documents, these are known as “D-day”, “D+1” and so on) there will be ritual proclamations, a four-nation tour by the new king, bowdlerised television programming, and a diplomatic assembling in London not seen since the death of Winston Churchill in 1965.

More overwhelming than any of this, though, there will be an almighty psychological reckoning for the kingdom that she leaves behind. The Queen is Britain’s last living link with our former greatness – the nation’s id, its problematic self-regard – which is still defined by our victory in the second world war. One leading historian, who like most people I interviewed for this article declined to be named, stressed that the farewell for this country’s longest-serving monarch will be magnificent. “Oh, she will get everything,” he said. “We were all told that the funeral of Churchill was the requiem for Britain as a great power. But actually it will really be over when she goes.”

Unlike the US presidency, say, monarchies allow huge passages of time – a century, in some cases – to become entwined with an individual. The second Elizabethan age is likely to be remembered as a reign of uninterrupted national decline, and even, if she lives long enough and Scotland departs the union, as one of disintegration. Life and politics at the end of her rule will be unrecognisable from their grandeur and innocence at its beginning. “We don’t blame her for it,” Philip Ziegler, the historian and royal biographer, told me. “We have declined with her, so to speak.”

The obituary films will remind us what a different country she inherited. One piece of footage will be played again and again: from her 21st birthday, in 1947, when Princess Elizabeth was on holiday with her parents in Cape Town . She was 6,000 miles from home and comfortably within the pale of the British Empire. The princess sits at a table with a microphone. The shadow of a tree plays on her shoulder. The camera adjusts three or four times as she talks, and on each occasion, she twitches momentarily, betraying tiny flashes of aristocratic irritation. “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service, and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she says, enunciating vowels and a conception of the world that have both vanished.

It is not unusual for a country to succumb to a state of denial as a long chapter in its history is about to end. When it became public that Queen Victoria was dying, at the age of 82, a widow for half her life, “astonished grief … swept the country”, wrote her biographer, Lytton Strachey. In the minds of her subjects, the queen’s mortality had become unimaginable; and with her demise, everything was suddenly at risk, placed in the hands of an elderly and untrusted heir, Edward VII. “The wild waters are upon us now,” wrote the American Henry James, who had moved to London 30 years before.

The parallels with the unease that we will feel at the death of Elizabeth II are obvious, but without the consolation of Britain’s status in 1901 as the world’s most successful country. “We have to have narratives for royal events,” the historian told me. “In the Victorian reign, everything got better and better, and bigger and bigger. We certainly can’t tell that story today.”

The result is an enormous objection to even thinking about – let alone talking or writing about – what will happen when the Queen dies. We avoid the subject as we avoid it in our own families. It seems like good manners, but it is also fear. The reporting for this article involved dozens of interviews with broadcasters, government officials, and departed palace staff, several of whom have worked on London Bridge directly. Almost all insisted on complete secrecy. “This meeting never happened,” I was told after one conversation in a gentleman’s club on Pall Mall. Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, has a policy of not commenting on funeral arrangements for members of the royal family.

And yet this taboo, like much to do with the monarchy, is not entirely rational, and masks a parallel reality. The next great rupture in Britain’s national life has, in fact, been planned to the minute. It involves matters of major public importance, will be paid for by us, and is definitely going to happen. According to the Office of National Statistics, a British woman who reaches the age of 91 – as the Queen will in April – has an average life expectancy of four years and three months. The Queen is approaching the end of her reign at a time of maximum disquiet about Britain’s place in the world, at a moment when internal political tensions are close to breaking her kingdom apart. Her death will also release its own destabilising forces: in the accession of Queen Camilla; in the optics of a new king who is already an old man; and in the future of the Commonwealth, an invention largely of her making. (The Queen’s title of “Head of the Commonwealth” is not hereditary.) Australia’s prime minister and leader of the opposition both want the country to become a republic.

Coping with the way these events fall is the next great challenge of the House of Windsor, the last European royal family to practise coronations and to persist – with the complicity of a willing public – in the magic of the whole enterprise. That is why the planning for the Queen’s death and its ceremonial aftermath is so extensive. Succession is part of the job. It is an opportunity for order to be affirmed. Queen Victoria had written down the contents of her coffin by 1875. The Queen Mother’s funeral was rehearsed for 22 years. Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, prepared a winter and a summer menu for his funeral lunch. London Bridge is the Queen’s exit plan. “It’s history,” as one of her courtiers said. It will be 10 days of sorrow and spectacle in which, rather like the dazzling mirror of the monarchy itself, we will revel in who we were and avoid the question of what we have become.

T he idea is for nothing to be unforeseen. If the Queen dies abroad, a BAe 146 jet from the RAF’s No 32 squadron, known as the Royal Flight, will take off from Northolt, at the western edge of London, with a coffin on board. The royal undertakers, Leverton & Sons, keep what they call a “first call coffin” ready in case of royal emergencies. Both George V and George VI were buried in oak grown on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. If the Queen dies there, her body will come to London by car after a day or two.

The most elaborate plans are for what happens if she passes away at Balmoral, where she spends three months of the year. This will trigger an initial wave of Scottish ritual. First, the Queen’s body will lie at rest in her smallest palace, at Holyroodhouse, in Edinburgh, where she is traditionally guarded by the Royal Company of Archers, who wear eagle feathers in their bonnets. Then the coffin will be carried up the Royal Mile to St Giles’s cathedral, for a service of reception, before being put on board the Royal Train at Waverley station for a sad progress down the east coast mainline. Crowds are expected at level crossings and on station platforms the length of the country – from Musselburgh and Thirsk in the north, to Peterborough and Hatfield in the south – to throw flowers on the passing train. (Another locomotive will follow behind, to clear debris from the tracks.) “It’s actually very complicated,” one transport official told me.

In every scenario, the Queen’s body returns to the throne room in Buckingham Palace, which overlooks the north-west corner of the Quadrangle, its interior courtyard. There will be an altar, the pall, the royal standard, and four Grenadier Guards, their bearskin hats inclined, their rifles pointing to the floor, standing watch. In the corridors, staff employed by the Queen for more than 50 years will pass, following procedures they know by heart. “Your professionalism takes over because there is a job to be done,” said one veteran of royal funerals. There will be no time for sadness, or to worry about what happens next. Charles will bring in many of his own staff when he accedes. “Bear in mind,” the courtier said, “everybody who works in the palace is actually on borrowed time.”

Outside, news crews will assemble on pre-agreed sites next to Canada Gate, at the bottom of Green Park. (Special fibre-optic cable runs under the Mall, for broadcasting British state occasions.) “I have got in front of me an instruction book a couple of inches thick,” said one TV director, who will cover the ceremonies, when we spoke on the phone. “Everything in there is planned. Everyone knows what to do.” Across the country, flags will come down and bells will toll. In 1952, Great Tom was rung at St Paul’s every minute for two hours when the news was announced. The bells at Westminster Abbey sounded and the Sebastopol bell, taken from the Black Sea city during the Crimean war and rung only on the occasion of a sovereign’s death, was tolled 56 times at Windsor – once for each year of George VI’s life – from 1.27pm until 2.22pm.

The 18th Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal, will be in charge. Norfolks have overseen royal funerals since 1672. During the 20th century, a set of offices in St James’s Palace was always earmarked for their use. On the morning of George VI’s death, in 1952, these were being renovated. By five o’clock in the afternoon, the scaffolding was down and the rooms were re-carpeted, furnished and equipped with phones, lights and heating. During London Bridge, the Lord Chamberlain’s office in the palace will be the centre of operations. The current version of the plan is largely the work of Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Mather, a former equerry who retired from the palace in 2014. As a 23-year-old guardsman in 1965, Mather led the pallbearers at Churchill’s funeral. (He declined to speak with me.) The government’s team – coordinating the police, security, transport and armed forces – will assemble at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Someone will have the job of printing around 10,000 tickets for invited guests, the first of which will be required for the proclamation of King Charles in about 24 hours time.

E veryone on the conference calls and around the table will know each other. For a narrow stratum of the British aristocracy and civil service, the art of planning major funerals – the solemnity, the excessive detail – is an expression of a certain national competence. Thirty-one people gathered for the first meeting to plan Churchill’s funeral, “Operation Hope Not”, in June 1959, six years before his death. Those working on London Bridge (and Tay Bridge and Forth Bridge, the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral) will have corresponded for years in a language of bureaucratic euphemism, about “a possible future ceremony”; “a future problem”; “some inevitable occasion, the timing of which, however, is quite uncertain”.

The first plans for London Bridge date back to the 1960s, before being refined in detail at the turn of the century. Since then, there have been meetings two or three times a year for the various actors involved (around a dozen government departments, the police, army, broadcasters and the Royal Parks) in Church House, Westminster, the Palace, or elsewhere in Whitehall. Participants described them to me as deeply civil and methodical. “Everyone around the world is looking to us to do this again perfectly,” said one, “and we will.” Plans are updated and old versions are destroyed. Arcane and highly specific knowledge is shared. It takes 28 minutes at a slow march from the doors of St James’s to the entrance of Westminster Hall. The coffin must have a false lid, to hold the crown jewels, with a rim at least three inches high.

In theory, everything is settled. But in the hours after the Queen has gone, there will be details that only Charles can decide. “Everything has to be signed off by the Duke of Norfolk and the King,” one official told me. The Prince of Wales has waited longer to assume the British throne than any heir, and the world will now swirl around him at a new and uncrossable distance. “For a little while,” wrote Edward VIII, of the days between his father’s death and funeral, “I had the uneasy sensation of being left alone on a vast stage.” In recent years, much of the work on London Bridge has focused on the precise choreography of Charles’s accession. “There are really two things happening,” as one of his advisers told me. “There is the demise of a sovereign and then there is the making of a king.” Charles is scheduled to make his first address as head of state on the evening of his mother’s death.

Switchboards – the Palace, Downing Street, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport – will be swamped with calls during the first 48 hours. It is such a long time since the death of a monarch that many national organisations won’t know what to do. The official advice, as it was last time, will be that business should continue as usual. This won’t necessarily happen. If the Queen dies during Royal Ascot, the meet will be scrapped. The Marylebone Cricket Club is said to hold insurance for a similar outcome if she passes away during a home test match at Lord’s. After the death of George VI in 1952, rugby and hockey fixtures were called off, while football matches went ahead. Fans sang Abide With Me and the national anthem before kick off. The National Theatre will close if the news breaks before 4pm, and stay open if not. All games, including golf, will be banned in the Royal Parks.

In 2014, the National Association of Civic Officers circulated protocols for local authorities to follow in case of “the death of a senior national figure”. It advised stockpiling books of condolence – loose leaf, so inappropriate messages can be removed – to be placed in town halls, libraries and museums the day after the Queen dies. Mayors will mask their decorations (maces will be shrouded with black bags). In provincial cities, big screens will be erected so crowds can follow events taking place in London, and flags of all possible descriptions, including beach flags (but not red danger flags), will be flown at half mast. The country must be seen to know what it is doing. The most recent set of instructions to embassies in London went out just before Christmas. One of the biggest headaches will be for the Foreign Office, dealing with all the dignitaries who descend from all corners of the earth. In Papua New Guinea, where the Queen is the head of state, she is known as “Mama belong big family”. European royal families will be put up at the palace; the rest will stay at Claridge’s hotel.

Parliament will gather. If possible, both houses will sit within hours of the monarch’s death. In 1952, the Commons convened for two minutes before noon. “We cannot at this moment do more than record a spontaneous expression of our grief,” said Churchill, who was prime minister. The house met again in the evening, when MPs began swearing the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign. Messages rained in from parliaments and presidents. The US House of Representatives adjourned. Ethiopia announced two weeks of mourning. In the House of Lords, the two thrones will be replaced by a single chair and a cushion bearing the golden outline of a crown.

On D+1, the day after the Queen’s death, the flags will go back up, and at 11am, Charles will be proclaimed king. The Accession Council, which convenes in the red-carpeted Entrée Room of St James’s Palace, long predates parliament. The meeting, of the “Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm”, derives from the Witan, the Anglo-Saxon feudal assembly of more than a thousand years ago. In theory, all 670 current members of the Privy Council, from Jeremy Corbyn to Ezekiel Alebua, the former prime minister of the Solomon Islands, are invited – but there is space for only 150 or so. In 1952, the Queen was one of two women present at her proclamation.

The clerk, a senior civil servant named Richard Tilbrook, will read out the formal wording, “Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second of Blessed and Glorious memory…” and Charles will carry out the first official duties of his reign, swearing to protect the Church in Scotland, and speaking of the heavy burden that is now his.

At dawn, the central window overlooking Friary Court, on the palace’s eastern front, will have been removed and the roof outside covered in red felt. After Charles has spoken, trumpeters from the Life Guards, wearing red plumes on their helmets, will step outside, give three blasts and the Garter King of Arms, a genealogist named Thomas Woodcock, will stand on the balcony and begin the ritual proclamations of King Charles III . “I will make the first one,” said Woodcock, whose official salary of £49.07 has not been raised since the 1830s. In 1952, four newsreel cameras recorded the moment. This time there will be an audience of billions. People will look for auguries – in the weather, in birds flying overhead – for Charles’s reign. At Elizabeth’s accession, everyone was convinced that the new queen was too calm. The band of the Coldstream Guards will play the national anthem on drums that are wrapped in black cloth.

The proclamations will only just be getting started. From St James’s, the Garter King of Arms and half a dozen other heralds, looking like extras from an expensive Shakespeare production, will go by carriage to the statue of Charles I, at the base of Trafalgar Square, which marks London’s official midpoint, and read out the news again. A 41-gun salute – almost seven minutes of artillery – will be fired from Hyde Park. “There is no concession to modernity in this,” one former palace official told me. There will be cocked hats and horses everywhere. One of the concerns of the broadcasters is what the crowds will look like as they seek to record these moments of history. “The whole world is going to be bloody doing this,” said one news executive, holding up his phone in front of his face.

On the old boundary of the City of London, outside the Royal Courts of Justice, a red cord will hang across the road. The City Marshal, a former police detective chief superintendent named Philip Jordan, will be waiting on a horse. The heralds will be formally admitted to the City, and there will be more trumpets and more announcements: at the Royal Exchange, and then in a chain reaction across the country. Sixty-five years ago, there were crowds of 10,000 in Birmingham; 5,000 in Manchester; 15,000 in Edinburgh. High Sheriffs stood on the steps of town halls, and announced the new sovereign according to local custom. In York, the Mayor raised a toast to the Queen from a cup made of solid gold.

The same rituals will take place, but this time around the new king will also go out to meet his people. From his proclamation at St James’s, Charles will immediately tour the country, visiting Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff to attend services of remembrance for his mother and to meet the leaders of the devolved governments. There will also be civic receptions, for teachers, doctors and other ordinary folk, which are intended to reflect the altered spirit of his reign. “From day one, it is about the people rather than just the leaders being part of this new monarchy,” said one of his advisers, who described the plans for Charles’s progress as: “Lots of not being in a car, but actually walking around.” In the capital, the pageantry of royal death and accession will be archaic and bewildering. But from another city each day, there will be images of the new king mourning alongside his subjects, assuming his almighty, lonely role in the public imagination. “It is see and be seen,” the adviser said.

F or a long time, the art of royal spectacle was for other, weaker peoples: Italians, Russians, and Habsburgs. British ritual occasions were a mess. At the funeral of Princess Charlotte, in 1817, the undertakers were drunk. Ten years later, St George’s Chapel was so cold during the burial of the Duke of York that George Canning, the foreign secretary, contracted rheumatic fever and the bishop of London died. “We never saw so motley, so rude, so ill-managed a body of persons,” reported the Times on the funeral of George IV, in 1830. Victoria’s coronation a few years later was nothing to write home about. The clergy got lost in the words; the singing was awful; and the royal jewellers made the coronation ring for the wrong finger. “Some nations have a gift for ceremonial,” the Marquess of Salisbury wrote in 1860. “In England the case is exactly the reverse.”

What we think of as the ancient rituals of the monarchy were mainly crafted in the late 19th century, towards the end of Victoria’s reign. Courtiers, politicians and constitutional theorists such as Walter Bagehot worried about the dismal sight of the Empress of India trooping around Windsor in her donkey cart. If the crown was going to give up its executive authority, it would have to inspire loyalty and awe by other means – and theatre was part of the answer. “The more democratic we get,” wrote Bagehot in 1867, “the more we shall get to like state and show.”

Obsessed by death, Victoria planned her own funeral with some style. But it was her son, Edward VII, who is largely responsible for reviving royal display. One courtier praised his “curious power of visualising a pageant”. He turned the state opening of parliament and military drills, like the Trooping of the Colour, into full fancy-dress occasions, and at his own passing, resurrected the medieval ritual of lying in state. Hundreds of thousands of subjects filed past his coffin in Westminster Hall in 1910, granting a new sense of intimacy to the body of the sovereign. By 1932, George V was a national father figure, giving the first royal Christmas speech to the nation – a tradition that persists today – in a radio address written for him by Rudyard Kipling.

The shambles and the remoteness of the 19th-century monarchy were replaced by an idealised family and historic pageantry invented in the 20th. In 1909, Kaiser Wilhelm II boasted about the quality of German martial processions: “The English cannot come up to us in this sort of thing.” Now we all know that no one else quite does it like the British.

The Queen, by all accounts a practical and unsentimental person, understands the theatrical power of the crown. “I have to be seen to be believed,” is said to be one of her catchphrases. And there is no reason to doubt that her funeral rites will evoke a rush of collective feeling. “I think there will be a huge and very genuine outpouring of deep emotion,” said Andrew Roberts, the historian. It will be all about her, and it will really be about us. There will be an urge to stand in the street, to see it with your own eyes, to be part of a multitude. The cumulative effect will be conservative. “I suspect the Queen’s death will intensify patriotic feelings,” one constitutional thinker told me, “and therefore fit the Brexit mood, if you like, and intensify the feeling that there is nothing to learn from foreigners.”

The wave of feeling will help to swamp the awkward facts of the succession. The rehabilitation of Camilla as the Duchess of Cornwall has been a quiet success for the monarchy, but her accession as queen will test how far that has come. Since she married Charles in 2005, Camilla has been officially known as Princess Consort, a formulation that has no historical or legal meaning. (“It’s bullshit,” one former courtier told me, describing it as “a sop to Diana”.) The fiction will end when Elizabeth II dies. Under common law, Camilla will become queen — the title always given to the wives of kings. There is no alternative. “She is queen whatever she is called,” as one scholar put it. “If she is called Princess Consort there is an implication that she is not quite up to it. It’s a problem.” There are plans to clarify this situation before the Queen dies, but King Charles is currently expected to introduce Queen Camilla at his Accession Council on D+1. (Camilla was invited to join the Privy Council last June, so she will be present.) Confirmation of her title will form part of the first tumultuous 24 hours.

The Commonwealth is the other knot. In 1952, at the last accession, there were only eight members of the new entity taking shape in the outline of the British Empire. The Queen was the head of state in seven of them, and she was proclaimed Head of the Commonwealth to accommodate India’s lone status as a republic. Sixty-five years later, there are 36 republics in the organisation, which the Queen has attended assiduously throughout her reign, and now comprises a third of the world’s population. The problem is that the role is not hereditary, and there is no procedure for choosing the next one. “It’s a complete grey area,” said Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London.

For several years, the palace has been discreetly trying to ensure Charles’s succession as head of the bloc, in the absence of any other obvious option. Last October, Julia Gillard, the former prime minister of Australia, revealed that Christopher Geidt, the Queen’s private secretary, had visited her in February 2013 to ask her to support the idea. Canada and New Zealand have since fallen into line, but the title is unlikely to be included in King Charles’s proclamation. Instead it will be part of the discreet international lobbying that takes place as London fills up with diplomats and presidents in the days after the Queen’s death. There will be serious, busy receptions at the palace. “We are not talking about entertaining. But you have to show some form of respect for the fact that they have come,” said one courtier. “Such feasting and commingling, with my father still unburied, seemed to me unfitting and heartless,” wrote Edward VIII in his memoirs. The show must go on. Business will mix with grief.

T here will be a thousand final preparations in the nine days before the funeral. Soldiers will walk the processional routes. Prayers will be rehearsed. On D+1, Westminster Hall will be locked, cleaned and its stone floor covered with 1,500 metres of carpet. Candles, their wicks already burnt in, will be brought over from the Abbey. The streets around will be converted into ceremonial spaces. The bollards on the Mall will be removed, and rails put up to protect the hedges. There is space for 7,000 seats on Horse Guards Parade and 1,345 on Carlton House Terrace. In 1952, all the rhododendrons in Parliament Square were pulled up and women were barred from the roof of Admiralty Arch. “Nothing can be done to protect the bulbs,” noted the Ministry of Works. The Queen’s 10 pallbearers will be chosen, and practise carrying their burden out of sight in a barracks somewhere. British royals are buried in lead-lined coffins. Diana’s weighed a quarter of a ton.

The population will slide between sadness and irritability. In 2002, 130 people complained to the BBC about its insensitive coverage of the Queen Mother’s death; another 1,500 complained that Casualty was moved to BBC2. The TV schedules in the days after the Queen’s death will change again. Comedy won’t be taken off the BBC completely, but most satire will. There will be Dad’s Army reruns, but no Have I Got News For You.

People will be touchy either way. After the death of George VI, in a society much more Christian and deferential than this one, a Mass Observation survey showed that people objected to the endless maudlin music, the forelock-tugging coverage. “Don’t they think of old folk, sick people, invalids?” one 60-year old woman asked. “It’s been terrible for them, all this gloom.” In a bar in Notting Hill, one drinker said, “He’s only shit and soil now like anyone else,” which started a fight. Social media will be a tinderbox. In 1972, the writer Brian Masters estimated that around a third of us have dreamed about the Queen – she stands for authority and our mothers. People who are not expecting to cry will cry.

On D+4, the coffin will move to Westminster Hall, to lie in state for four full days. The procession from Buckingham Palace will be the first great military parade of London Bridge: down the Mall, through Horse Guards, and past the Cenotaph. More or less the same slow march, from St James’s Palace for the Queen Mother in 2002, involved 1,600 personnel and stretched for half a mile. The bands played Beethoven and a gun was fired every minute from Hyde Park. The route is thought to hold around a million people. The plan to get them there is based on the logistics for the London 2012 Olympics.

There may be corgis. In 1910, the mourners for Edward VII were led by his fox terrier, Caesar. His son’s coffin was followed to Wolferton station, at Sandringham, by Jock, a white shooting pony. The procession will reach Westminster Hall on the hour. The timing will be just so. “Big Ben beginning to chime as the wheels come to a stop,” as one broadcaster put it.

Inside the hall, there will be psalms as the coffin is placed on a catafalque draped in purple. King Charles will be back from his tour of the home nations, to lead the mourners. The orb, the sceptre and the Imperial Crown will be fixed in place, soldiers will stand guard and then the doors opened to the multitude that will have formed outside and will now stream past the Queen for 23 hours a day. For George VI, 305,000 subjects came. The line was four miles long. The palace is expecting half a million for the Queen. There will be a wondrous queue – the ultimate British ritual undertaking, with canteens, police, portable toilets and strangers talking cautiously to one another – stretching down to Vauxhall Bridge and then over the river and back along the Albert Embankment. MPs will skip to the front.

Under the chestnut roof of the hall, everything will feel fantastically well-ordered and consoling and designed to within a quarter of an inch, because it is. A 47-page internal report compiled after George VI’s funeral suggested attaching metal rollers to the catafalque, to smooth the landing of the coffin when it arrives. Four soldiers will stand silent vigil for 20 minutes at a time, with two ready in reserve. The RAF, the Army, the Royal Navy, the Beefeaters, the Gurkhas – everyone will take part. The most senior officer of the four will stand at the foot of the coffin, the most junior at the head. The wreaths on the coffin will be renewed every day. For Churchill’s lying in state in 1965, a replica of the hall was set up in the ballroom of the St Ermin’s hotel nearby, so soldiers could practise their movements before they went on duty. In 1936, the four sons of George V revived The Prince’s Vigil, in which members of the royal family arrive unannounced and stand watch. The Queen’s children and grandchildren – including women for the first time – will do the same.

Before dawn on D+9, the day of the funeral, in the silent hall, the jewels will be taken off the coffin and cleaned. In 1952, it took three jewellers almost two hours to remove all the dust. (The Star of Africa, on the royal sceptre, is the second-largest cut diamond in the world.) Most of the country will be waking to a day off. Shops will close, or go to bank holiday hours. Some will display pictures of the Queen in their windows. The stock market will not open. The night before, there will have been church services in towns across the UK. There are plans to open football stadiums for memorial services if necessary.

At 9am, Big Ben will strike. The bell’s hammer will then be covered with a leather pad seven-sixteenths of an inch thick, and it will ring out in muffled tones. The distance from Westminster Hall to the Abbey is only a few hundred metres. The occasion will feel familiar, even though it is new: the Queen will be the first British monarch to have her funeral in the Abbey since 1760. The 2,000 guests will be sitting inside. Television cameras, in hides made of painted bricks, will search for the images that we will remember. In 1965, the dockers dipped their cranes for Churchill. In 1997, it was the word “Mummy” on the flowers for Diana from her sons.

When the coffin reaches the abbey doors, at 11 o’clock, the country will fall silent. The clatter will still. Train stations will cease announcements. Buses will stop and drivers will get out at the side of the road. In 1952, at the same moment, all of the passengers on a flight from London to New York rose from their seats and stood, 18,000 feet above Canada, and bowed their heads.

Back then, the stakes were clearer, or at least they seemed that way. A stammering king had been part of the embattled British way of life that had survived an existential war. The wreath that Churchill laid said: “For Gallantry.” The BBC commentator in 1952, the man who deciphered the rubies and the rituals for the nation, was Richard Dimbleby, the first British reporter to enter Bergen-Belsen and convey its horrors, seven years before. “How true tonight that statement spoken by an unknown man of his beloved father,” murmured Dimbleby, describing the lying in state to millions. “The sunset of his death tinged the whole world’s sky.”

The trumpets and the ancientness were proof of our survival; and the king’s young daughter would rule the peace. “These royal ceremonies represented decency, tradition, and public duty, in contradiction to the ghastliness of Nazism,” as one historian told me. The monarchy had traded power for theatre, and in the aftermath of war, the illusion became more powerful than anyone could have imagined. “It was restorative,” Jonathan Dimbleby, Richard’s son and biographer, told me.

His brother, David, is likely to be behind the BBC microphone this time. The question will be what the bells and the emblems and the heralds represent now. At what point does the pomp of an imperial monarchy become ridiculous amid the circumstances of a diminished nation? “The worry,” a historian said, “is that it is just circus animals.”

If the monarchy exists as theatre, then this doubt is the part of the drama. Can they still pull it off? Knowing everything that we know in 2017, how can it possibly hold that a single person might contain the soul of a nation? The point of the monarchy is not to answer such questions. It is to continue. “What a lot of our life we spend in acting,” the Queen Mother used to say.

Inside the Abbey, the archbishop will speak. During prayers, the broadcasters will refrain from showing royal faces. When the coffin emerges again, the pallbearers will place it on the green gun carriage that was used for the Queen’s father, and his father and his father’s father, and 138 junior sailors will drop their heads to their chests and pull. The tradition of being hauled by the Royal Navy began in 1901 when Victoria’s funeral horses, all white, threatened to bolt at Windsor Station and a waiting contingent of ratings stepped in to pull the coffin instead.

The procession will swing on to the Mall. In 1952, the RAF was grounded out of respect for King George VI. In 2002, at 12.45pm, a Lancaster bomber and two Spitfires flew over the cortege for his wife and dipped their wings. The crowds will be deep for the Queen. She will get everything. From Hyde Park Corner, the hearse will go 23 miles by road to Windsor Castle, which claims the bodies of British sovereigns. The royal household will be waiting for her, standing on the grass. Then the cloister gates will be closed and cameras will stop broadcasting. Inside the chapel, the lift to the royal vault will descend, and King Charles will drop a handful of red earth from a silver bowl.

This article was amended on 16 March 2017 to correct some minor errors including the fact that three of the Queen’s last four prime ministers, not the last three, were born after her accession – Blair, Cameron and May; that the Star of Africa on the royal sceptre is not the largest diamond in the world, but the second-largest cut diamond; and that the word “son’s” was originally missing from the second sentence in this passage: “In 1910, the mourners for Edward VII were led by his fox terrier, Caesar. His son’s coffin was followed to Wolferton station, at Sandringham, by Jock, a white shooting pony.”

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With shimmering washes of gray and brown, London Bridge depicts the river Thames as if viewed from a boat on the water. Whistler had experimented with watercolor on and off from childhood, but it was this work that was publicized as his “ first water-colour drawing.” 1 Though undoubtedly a transitional work, London Bridge boldly announces Whistler’s public entry into watercolor, harnessing a variety of techniques to viscerally conjure London’s damp and smoky atmosphere.

As in his nocturnes, where a few rapid strokes of black paint might telegraph a figure, Whistler here uses dabs of black and yellow to suggest distant carriages and horse-buses clamoring across London Bridge, which was famous for its crushing traffic. By 1881, Whistler had already made the Thames a trademark motif of his etchings and oil paintings. His choice to depict the river in watercolor, a medium understood as definitively British, might be read as an effort to reassert himself in the British art scene in the wake of his disastrous libel trial against the influential art critic John Ruskin. 2 As Lee Glazer and David Park Curry have noted, Whistler’s hazy view of a London bridgestrongly recalls J.M.W. Turner’s atmospheric river scenes, particularly works like Above Waterloo Bridge (Fig .1), in which murky columns of industrial steam rise over the Thames. Whistler likely intended London Bridge as both tribute and challenge to Turner, the artist who, thanks in large part to Ruskin’s championing, now reigned supreme within the canon of British landscape painting. 3 Above Waterloo Bridge was, however, exactly the kind of urban, industrial scene that Ruskin’s writings on Turner pointedly ignored. Borrowing specifically from this strand of Turner’s work, Whistler already asserts an iconoclastic vision of British landscape art.

Whistler’s apparently spontaneous and fluid handling of his medium belies a great deal of care and labor—a quality that would only strengthen as he grew more comfortable with watercolor in the coming years. He began London Bridge by loosely sketching the bridge and its surrounding buildings in pencil, a practice that had characterized the watercolor studies he had occasionally executed for his etchings.These scratchy lines of graphite, particularly clear in infrared images (Fig. 2), in fact recall Whistler’s most gestural etchings—works like Battersea Morn (Fig. 3), in which scattered black lines on a white page indicate snatches of outline perceived through smog. Whistler later abandoned such underdrawing, but its presence in London Bridge alerts us that this is a work by an artist in transition between paper media and a watercolorist still approaching his paper with the hand of an etcher.

Famously selective with the papers he used in his etchings, Whistler assembled a vast collection of antique papers with subtly different surfaces and colors. 4 Though he generally executed his watercolors on contemporary watercolor papers, he selected these with similar sensitivity, choosing a coarsely textured “rough” paper for London Bridge . Air dried rather than pressed, this type of paper preserves the raw texture of the paper pulp. In the lower half of the picture, Whistler allows his pigments to settle into the paper’s crevices, blotting the topmost surface to create a flickering, mottled effect that perfectly evokes the river’s lightly disturbed surface. In the sky, his quick uneven washes skip and flit across the craggy paper, creating a sense not simply of overcast sky, but of a sky in motion, thronged with low-hanging, windswept clouds.

A plume of smoke trails across the sky from the steamship below, fanning out as it disperses into the surrounding mist. Close examination of this plume reveals Whistler’s laborious technique (Fig. 4). Rewetting his paper, he has allowed the water to lift and carry pigment from the surrounding bridge and sky, leaving a smoky echo with a thin black tideline. A small streak of white at the plume’s center, where Whistler has blotted up the paint to reveal the paper below, hints at the heat and pressure driving the boat forward.

Throughout the watercolor, Whistler uses a wet-in-wet technique, allowing fluid washes of pigment to bleed into the paper’s dampened surface and create cloudy effects perfectly suited to London’s polluted haze. While Whistler would use this technique to its fullest effect in his later watercolor nocturnes, his mastery is already clear in his depiction of the steamship’s watery reflection in London Bridge . Recalling Turner’s heavily worked surfaces, Whistler creates a sense of the river’s depth and sheen, capturing its shifting notes of teal and coffee.

Whistler’s bold approach to watercolor manifests not only in his handling of the paint, but also in his choice of pigments. Analysis of the painting under UV light reveals his use of a thinned zinc white around the bridge, especially in the thick fog beneath the central arch where it fluoresces a bright yellow (Fig. 5).

 Zinc white, sometimes called “Chinese white,” was not in itself unusual material for nineteenth century watercolorists. John Ruskin had in fact enjoined watercolorists to “Use Chinese white, well ground, to mix with your colours in order to pale them, instead of a quantity of water.” 5 Used to transform translucent watercolor pigments into thick, opaque gouaches, it was a foundational material for high Victorian watercolorists like John Frederick Lewis, who relied upon it to create tightly controlled, opaque watercolors that approximated the effects of oil paintings (Fig. 6).

By the 1880s, however, British watercolorists were advocating a return to the looser, more spontaneous watercolor styles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 6 This period was the “golden age” of British watercolor painting, when artists had favored translucent colors, generally relying upon the white of the paper to provide luminosity. Whistler’s loose, fluid washes recall “golden age” watercolors, but his use of a watered-down zinc white places him at odds with both the traditional injunctions against gouache and the rich opacity of high-Victorian watercolor. Though a transitional work, London Bridge might be seen as Whistler’s first conscious effort to defy conventional understandings of watercolor and to set himself up as an iconoclastic innovator who would use the medium in new and modern ways.

Tara Contractor is a PhD Candidate at Yale University, specializing in nineteenth-century British art. Her dissertation, “British Gilt: Gold in Painting 1790–1914,” investigates gold as a defining material of the nineteenth century—a material through which artists explored the economics of empire and their place within new, global art histories. Her research has been recognized with support from the Delaware Art Museum, the Huntington Library, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. She is also a co-curator of the upcoming Yale Center for British Art exhibition Unto this Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin (opening September 2019).

Bibliography

1 “Notes on Current Events,” The British Architect 20 (September 23, 1881), 471.

2 For more information on the trial, see Linda Merrill, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in Whistler v. Ruskin (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993).

3 Lee Glazer, “A New Beginning,” in Whistler in Watercolor: Lovely Little Games , by Lee Glazer et al. (Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, 2019), 16–49; David Park Curry, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, 1984), 179.

4 Martha Smith, “Hunting for Old Paper with James McNeill Whistler,” The Book and Paper Group Annual 16 (1997).

5 John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing , in The Complete Works of John Ruskin , edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, Library Edition, vol. 15 (London: George Allen, 1904), 137.

6 Christopher Newall, “Innovation and Conservatism in the Later Victorian Period,” in Victorian Landscape Watercolors , by Scott Wilcox and Christopher Newall (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1992), 61.

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Comparing 'London' and 'Composed Upon Westminster bridge'

Steve Ramos 10 GVE        24/05/07

Compare how Wordsworth and Blake present their ideas about the city in their poems 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' and 'London'

Wordsworth and Blake express their views differently about London. The two poets’ poems were written at the time of the French Revolution. Blake’s poem ‘London’ was published in 1794. ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ was written in 1802. Both of these poems mainly focus on London but contrast in language, mood, structure, and theme. Wordsworth’s poem is virtually based on the key idea of romanticism, putting more emphasis on emotions than on individuals. He focuses on the beauty of London in the morning. He especially illustrates the morning in London because that is where he sees the pure beauty of it. In contrast, Blake’s poem ‘London’ addresses the audience on the negative parts of London and contradicts Wordsworth’s poem. Blake describes how the government and the growth of prostitution control London, he considered that human beings are naturally virtuous, however the society and civilisation’s rules are corrupted. At this time there was a great political conflict in Britain. Blake was writing about the city as he pictured it at the time. However, London was a much smaller city back then, and the countryside south of the river Thames is now the suburbs of south London. He is furious at the authorities and hates the way poverty in London is steadily increasing. Around this time the French revolution is going on in France, Blake is also a supporter of their struggle for democracy.

Blake describes ‘London’ as if the government with their corrupt, restrictive laws controlled it! The quote of the ‘chartered streets’ tells us that the rich were given charters, which allowed them to control the streets of London. Blake exaggerates with the quote ‘The chartered Thames’ to show us as if the rich could be able to control it. Blake clearly displays his immense hatred towards the political oppression imposed by the authorities. Blake uses death in his poem, criticising London for its sorrows because he sees despair in the faces of the people and hears the fear in their voices. However, if both poems were written around the same period, why do they contradict each other?

One of the many famous sonnets Wordsworth wrote was ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’. Wordsworth has chosen a sonnet because he now realises his been far away from a tremendous part of humanity, also Wordsworth sees the city as divine. He feels more associated with the whole city, as well as with the sky and fields.

Wordsworth’s poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, this means the poem is divided into two sections. Wordsworth flows his poem and tries to keep a romantic rhythm going, on the other hand Blake's poem is more joint and follows a rhyme scheme.

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, Blake’s poem has four quatrains, with alternate lines rhyming, ABAB words such as ‘fear…hear’, ‘man…ban’ and ‘curse…hearse', this illustrates the destruction of life in the city, including poverty, disease and particularly the ‘marks of weakness, marks of woe’. Blake creates a well-structured effect by making each line of each verse having the same number of syllables. Blake attacks different aspects of London in each verse of the poem.

The most effective feature of the poem is Blake’s use of repetition, for instance Blake displays a large emphasis onto the despair affecting everyone by the repetition of ‘every’. Blake assumes that the people in London are living in misery and fear. For instance, ‘every cry of every man’. This emphasises that everyone is disturbed and as a result of this they are crying because they know they cannot do anything about it.

By Blake using repetition of ‘every’ really emphasises everyone of London.

Blake describes the horrors of London by emphasising a negative tone by the repetition of the term ‘cry’, which emphasises the horrors. In the first stanza, Blake describes the ‘chartered streets’ on how the streets of London were controlled by the rich. In the second stanza, Blake uses aural imagery ‘the mind-forged manacles I hear’ to emphasise that he hears the clinking of the chains. In the third stanza, Blake puts the blame onto the church; he symbolically describes the church as ‘blackening’, black suggests to us that it represents both evil and death, also this emphasises the guilt. Blake links the church with the chimney-sweepers because the chimney-sweepers usually needed the church’s help for somewhere to stay or at least food, but were continuously rejected. The quote ‘blackening church’ shows us that why it was represented as smoke. In the final stanza, it mainly focuses on marriage and new-life, both of these should bring happiness, but instead Blake sees this as a cycle of corruption, and he criticises the reasons for marriage. The quote ‘And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.’ This shows us he believes that instead of people marrying for love, they marry for convenience. From these two poems, you can instantly figure out which poem is calmer and which is the more violent.

In ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’, published in 1802 by William Wordsworth, he reflects on a beautiful view of the city. He uses poetic techniques such as rhyme, personification, hyperbole, and imagery. The central metaphor of ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’, is the ‘mighty heart’, whereas ‘London’s’, is ‘mind-forged manacles’. These two metaphors contradict each other because on one hand ‘mighty heart’ is a positive point and describes the Thames and the city as if it was alive. Whereas ‘mind-forged manacles’ is a negative point and describes the chains as if they have imprisoned people’s thoughts. Wordsworth creates an image in the reader's mind that is so vivid, that the reader can picture oneself on that very bridge. The Earth is personified and Wordsworth uses hyperbole ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’, this tells us he has never seen anything so amazing. In the fourth line, the city is personified by the quote ‘This City now doth, like a garment wear’, a garment is any article of clothing, and this describes the city as if it was wearing fine clothing. In the fifth line, ‘The beauty of the morning; silent, bare…’ this displays a breathtaking imagery of the morning sky of how it’s completely clear. In the eighth line the imagery quote, ‘All bright and glittering in the smokeless air’, shows us the image of purity and clearness. By Wordsworth using his unique references to nature all through the poem, he paints a vision in the reader’s mind. In the twelveth line, the river is being personified by ‘The river glideth at his own sweet will’, this shows us a relevant view of London. In the last line, ‘mighty heart’ is hyperbole as well as personification because it shows the heart is always active as well as the tranquility of the city. By this, Wordsworth give us a positive tone about London. Also, London is the heart of Britain and the British empire, so now the London heart beats peacefully. Wordsworth uses extremely beautiful language, such as hyperbole, personification, rhyme and especially imagery because the picture he paints makes the city come alive right before the reader's very eyes.

At this point Blake felt strong hatred against these charters because he saw it as a restriction against other people’s lives. Firstly, ‘I wander through each chartered street’ and ‘Near where the chartered Thames does flow’,

this shows us that Blake is criticising these laws. In the first line, Blake shows the streets restricted from other people. In the second line, he describes how the Thames is being forced through man-made channels, by doing this Blake describes the Thames metaphorically. This is very different to Wordsworth’s river because the quote ‘The river glideth at his own sweet will’, this tells us that he is basically saying the river has it’s own life and flows freely, this contradicts with Blake’s word ‘mind-forged manacles’, as Blake talks about not being free. The quote ‘mind-forged manacles’ sums up the theme of restriction of the way people are forced to live in these appalling conditions. Blake’s alliteration of “m’s”, gives this line more emphasis because when the reader sees it, it will create an important image in their head. Blake clearly states the manacles are something unnatural, which are a human creation. He makes it seem as if the manacles are placed mentally on people. Blake talks about how the manacles are controlling people’s lives and restricting people from allowing them to do things. Throughout the poem, Blake describes the people’s lives in desperate poverty.

Blake strongly believes that this social system was a corrupt system, where the government was against the poor citizens, Blake was against this because he believed it was unequal to the poor and saw it more as a favour to the rich. ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe.’ ‘In every cry of every man.’ In these lines, he is showing the seriousness and the difficult living condition on people’s faces.                              

In each of these poems, it’s written in a distinct narrative voice; thus, a resident and a tourist of London. It is obvious to figure out which poem is written in the lifestyle of each narrative. We can tell in the first poem, Wordsworth has the narrative voice of a tourist because during the time he wrote the poem, he was on his way to France passing through London on top of a carriage. Also, Wordsworth does not mention any negative points and by expressing his opinions of London positively, he gives an image to the reader showing the city is calm and beautiful.

In the second poem, Blake uses a depressing and negative tone about London in his poem. We can tell Blake has the narrative voice of a resident by the quote ‘I wander’ and because he uses negative description on the whole poem. ‘How the chimney-sweepers cry, every blackening church appalls’, this line is very effective because it has two different definitions, for example ‘Blackening church’. He thinks London is a dirty place to live in, therefore he does not like London, however it can also mean that the church is being darkened due to the cause of pollution.

Overall, ‘London’ and ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ have a variety of similarities and differences.  For instance, the differences are that the poem ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ is a positive point of view where he talks about the beauty of the morning of London, whereas ‘London’ has a negative point of view where Blake describes the misery of the poor people in London. Both of them contrast with each other because ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ affects the reader with a sense of astonishment at the beauty that Wordsworth creates with the sunrise. The city of London appears to be the most beautiful place on earth during the morning. The sun lights up the city in light and gives the reader a sense of purity and cleanliness.

The quote ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’, illustrates to us Wordsworth claims that London is much better than God’s natural creations.

However, ‘London’ affects the reader with an opposite feeling, as the reader sees the city of London which cannot be saved.

These two poems reflect the poets’ perspectives because firstly, Blake was a Londoner, so as he lived his life in London he probably saw the real image of London and secondly, as Wordsworth was passing through in the morning , he would of just seen the beauty of the morning not the pollution later on.

On the other hand, both poems have similarities,   such as they both talk about London as well as using the same context, they were both written around the early 19 th  Century and they both personified the Thames because both poets see the river Thames as a very important part of London. Blake describes the Thames as ‘Chartered Thames’, which shows us that it is controlled by the rich, whereas Wordsworth describes the Thames as the ‘Mighty heart’, which gives us the impression that the Thames is a living thing.

Document Details

• Word Count 2039
• Subject English

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Essay on London

Students are often asked to write an essay on London in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on London

Introduction to london.

London is the capital city of the United Kingdom. Known for its rich history, it’s a place where modern life meets tradition.

Famous Landmarks

London is home to famous landmarks like the Big Ben, London Eye, and Tower Bridge. These structures attract millions of tourists annually.

Culture and Diversity

London is culturally diverse, with people from various parts of the world living there. This diversity is reflected in its food, music, and festivals.

London’s economy is one of the largest in the world, with industries like finance, fashion, and technology contributing significantly.

It houses some of the world’s top universities like Oxford and Cambridge, making it a hub for education.

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250 Words Essay on London

Introduction.

London, the capital city of the United Kingdom, is a vibrant melting pot of cultures, history, and innovation. It stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of human progress and diversity.

Historical Significance

London’s history stretches back over two millennia, with its origins dating back to its founding by the Romans. This rich historical tapestry includes periods of plague, devastating fire, civil war, aerial bombardment, and the rise and fall of empires. Landmarks like the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and the British Museum serve as enduring reminders of this past.

Cultural Diversity

As one of the world’s most multicultural cities, London is a dynamic blend of cultures, languages, and religions. This diversity is reflected in its food, music, fashion, and even its architecture. It is a city where the world meets and interacts, creating a unique, ever-evolving cultural landscape.

Innovation and Influence

London is a global hub for finance, arts, and technology. Its influence on politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, and the arts contributes to its status as one of the world’s major global cities. Home to world-class institutions like the London School of Economics and University College London, it is at the forefront of intellectual thought and innovation.

London, with its rich history, cultural diversity, and global influence, stands as a beacon of human achievement and potential. It is a city that embodies the complexity and richness of our shared human experience.

500 Words Essay on London

London, the capital city of the United Kingdom, is a vibrant metropolis that is steeped in rich history and culture. The city’s unique blend of the old and the new creates a captivating tapestry that attracts millions of tourists each year. From its iconic landmarks to its diverse population, London is a city that truly embodies the spirit of multiculturalism.

Historical Overview

London’s history dates back to the Roman times when it was known as Londinium. Over the centuries, the city has witnessed numerous historical events such as the signing of the Magna Carta, the Great Fire of London, and the Blitz during World War II. These events have helped shape the city’s character, leaving an indelible mark on its architecture, culture, and people.

Iconic Landmarks

London is home to an array of iconic landmarks that are synonymous with the city. The Tower of London, a historic castle located on the north bank of the River Thames, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city’s skyline is dominated by the Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, and the London Eye, a giant Ferris wheel offering panoramic views of the city. The British Museum, Tate Modern, and the National Gallery showcase the city’s commitment to preserving and promoting art and culture.

London’s cultural diversity is one of its most defining features. The city is a melting pot of different cultures, languages, and cuisines, making it a microcosm of the world. This multiculturalism is reflected in the city’s food scene, its arts and music festivals, and its people.

Economic Significance

London’s economic significance cannot be understated. It is a major global hub for finance, with the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s of London being key players in the world economy. The city is also a major centre for media and technology, housing the headquarters of several multinational companies.

Education and Research

London boasts some of the world’s top universities and research institutions, including the University of London, Imperial College, and the London School of Economics. These institutions attract students and researchers from around the globe, contributing to the city’s intellectual and cultural richness.

In conclusion, London is a city that is as diverse as it is dynamic. Its rich history, iconic landmarks, cultural diversity, economic significance, and commitment to education and research make it a city that continues to captivate and inspire. As Samuel Johnson famously said, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” This statement encapsulates the essence of this remarkable city, highlighting its enduring appeal to people from all walks of life.

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