190 



NEW LONDON BRIDGE. 



THE first pile of this truly magnificent bridge was driven on the 15th 

 March, 1824. A cofferdam was then made; this is the name given to a 

 space enclosed in a river, bydriving piles of two or three rows, the spaces be- 

 tween the rows being filled up with earth, to prevent the admission of water, 

 when that in the inner enclosure is pumped out. In this cofferdam the 

 foundations of a pier are laid on the solid ground ; this being completed 

 the first stone of the bridge was laid on the 27th of April, 1825. The 

 building proceeded with great rapidity, and the first arch was keyed in 

 on the 4th of August, 1827. The arcnes of the bridge being very flat 

 elliptics, it was necessary that the centres (upon which the stones and 

 other materials of an arch are supported during the progress of the work), 

 should be particularly strong. Each centre of this bridge consisted of 

 nearly eight hundred tons of timber and iron ! The bridge was finally 

 completed on the 31st July, 1831, having been seven years and a half in 

 its building. It was opened in great state by William the Fourth, on 

 the 1st of August, 1831. 



The exact situation of this bridge is 180 feet higher up the river than 

 the old bridge, by which means the steep approach by Fish Street Hill is 

 altogether avoided. There are five semi-elliptical arches (exclusive of two 

 dry arches which pass over Thames-street and Tooley-street), the least of 

 these is larger than any other stone arch of this form ever erected. The 

 centre arch is 152 feet span,with a rise above high-water-mark of twenty-nine 

 feet six inches ; the two arches next the centre are 140 feet in span ; the 

 abutments are each 130 feet in span. The roadway is fifty-three feet 

 wide between the parapets, the footways occupying nine feet each ; the 

 rise in the road is only one in 132. The length of the bridge from the 

 extremities of the abutments is 928 feet; within the abutments 782 feet* 

 The bridge is built wholly of Granite, and the total quantity of stone 

 used was 120,000 tons. Itcost nearly two millions sterling, partly by a 

 grant from the Treasury, and the remainder by the Corporation of the 

 City oi London, who are allowed to levy a tax upon coals of lOd. per 

 chaldron for twenty-six years. Sir John Rennie was the Architect. 



