In pictures: London's bridges through the ages
- Published
As Tower Bridge celebrates turning 120, a new exhibition is taking a look at London's bridges through the ages. This image from 1910 shows a glass negative of the iconic London landmark.
The exhibition will feature paintings, prints, drawings, etchings, photography and film, including this portrait of Westminster Bridge by Joseph Farrington from 1789.
The Museum of London's senior curator, Francis Marshall, said: "To cross a London bridge is to really see the city. London's bridges give a view of the capital impossible to appreciate from its jumbled medieval street plan."
This panorama by Henry Aston Barker showed London from the roof of Albion Mills in 1791. When the image was first created, the building, which then housed sugar mills, was the highest structure between St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.
An engraving of a view of part of the intended bridge at Blackfriars London by Giovanni Battista Piranesi showed the techniques of bridge building in 1763.
This photograph of London Bridge Station and Tower Bridge captured in 2011 by Suki Chan shows the change in the capital's landscape.
George Davison Reid photographed this scene looking upstream from Lower Custom House Stairs, near Traitors' Gate. Causeways and stairs lined the Thames riverfront, enabling watermen to ferry river workers and passengers in their boats.
From London Bridge to Millennium, Waterloo, Westminster and beyond, the exhibition will look at how bridges allow people to move around, view and experience the city.
Museum of London's Director Sharon Ament said: "Tower Bridge's unmistakable silhouette is an image synonymous with London, just like the Eiffel Tower screams Paris."
The free exhibition opens on 27 June and runs until 2 November at Museum of London Docklands.
- Published17 January 2014
- Published4 October 2013