Battersea Bridge
Battersea Bridge is a five-span arch bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England. It is situated on a sharp bend in the river, and links Battersea south of the river with Chelsea to the north. The bridge replaced a ferry service that had operated near the site since at least the middle of the 16th century.
The first Battersea Bridge was a toll bridge commissioned by John, Earl Spencer, who had recently acquired the rights to operate the ferry. Although a stone bridge was planned, difficulties in raising investment meant that a cheaper wooden bridge was built instead. Designed by Henry Holland, it was initially opened to pedestrians in November 1771, and to vehicle traffic in 1772. The bridge was inadequately designed and dangerous both to its users and to passing shipping, and boats often collided with it. To reduce the dangers to shipping, two piers were removed and the sections of the bridge above them were strengthened with iron girders.
Although dangerous and unpopular, the bridge was the last surviving wooden bridge on the Thames in London, and was the subject of paintings by many significant artists such as J. M. W. Turner, John Sell Cotman and James McNeill Whistler, including Whistler's Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, and his controversial Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket.
In 1879 the bridge was taken into public ownership, and in 1885 demolished and replaced with the existing bridge, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and built by John Mowlem & Co. The narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it is one of London's least busy Thames bridges. The location on a bend in the river makes the bridge a hazard to shipping, and it has been closed many times due to collisions.
Background
, about west of Westminster on the north bank of the River Thames, has existed as a settlement since at least Anglo-Saxon times. The Thames at this point inflects through a sharp angle from a south–north to an east–west flow, and the slow-moving and relatively easily fordable river here is popularly believed to be the site of Julius Caesar's crossing of the Thames during the 54 BC invasion of Britain. Chelsea enjoyed good road and river connections to the seat of government at Westminster and the commercial centre of the City of London since at least the 14th century. It was a centre of the British porcelain industry, and a major producer of baked goods – at peak periods almost 250,000 Chelsea buns per day were sold. By the 18th century it had large numbers of very prosperous residents.Battersea, listed as Patricesy in the Domesday Book and first mentioned in records of 693 AD, on the south bank of the river opposite Chelsea, was by contrast low and marshy land, prone to flooding. Conditions were ideal for farming asparagus and lavender, and a small market town grew in the area based on the asparagus and lavender industries.
Although Chelsea and Battersea had been linked by ferry since at least 1550, the nearest fixed links between the two were Putney Bridge, upstream and opened in 1729, and Westminster Bridge, downstream, opened in 1746. In 1763 John, Earl Spencer, purchased the manor of Battersea, and consequently acquired ownership of the ferry service between Chelsea and Battersea.
The ferry was old and somewhat dangerous, and Spencer formed the Battersea Bridge Company and sought and obtained parliamentary consent via the to build "a fine stone bridge" across the Thames. The bridge was to be built between Cheyne Walk and Battersea, at the point where the river's course turns sharply east towards Westminster, at a projected cost of £83,000. The earl had anticipated that many local residents would invest in the project, but soon found that there was widespread scepticism about the scheme. Only 15 investors, including the earl himself, were willing to invest, and a total of only £17,662 was raised, far less than was needed to finance the ambitious project.
Old Battersea Bridge
Spencer calculated that the money raised would be sufficient to finance a modest timber bridge, and a design was commissioned from rising architect Henry Holland. The bridge was built to Holland's designs by John Phillips, whose uncle Thomas Phillips had built the 1729 bridge at Putney. The bridge was opened to pedestrians in November 1771 while still incomplete. In 1772 a chalk and gravel surface was added and the bridge was opened to vehicle traffic. Tolls were charged on a sliding scale, ranging from d for pedestrians to 1 shilling for vehicles drawn by four or more horses. The bridge was never formally named, and was referred to on maps of the period as both "Battersea Bridge" and "Chelsea Bridge".The bridge was not a commercial success. It was long and only wide, making it impractical for larger vehicles to use. Holland's design consisted of nineteen separate narrow spans, the widest being only wide, and boats found it difficult to navigate beneath the bridge; there were a number of accidents including serious injuries and deaths. Repeatedly rammed by passing shipping, the bridge required frequent costly repairs, and dividends paid to investors were low. During a particularly cold winter in 1795 the bridge was badly damaged by ice, necessitating lengthy and expensive reconstruction, and no dividends at all were paid for the next three years. Concerns were expressed in Parliament about the reliability of the bridge, and the Battersea Bridge Company was obliged to provide a ferry service at the same rate as the bridge tolls, in the event of the bridge being closed for repairs.
In an effort to improve the bridge's poor safety record for its customers, oil lamps were added to the deck in 1799, making Battersea Bridge the first Thames bridge to be lit. Between 1821 and 1824 the flimsy wooden fences along the edges of the bridge, which were often breaking, were replaced by sturdy iron railings, and in 1824 the oil lamps were themselves replaced by gas lighting.
In 1873, in an effort to improve navigation around the bridge and reduce accidents, two of the piers were removed, making the widest span a more easily navigated, and the bridge deck was strengthened with iron girders to compensate for the missing piers.
Competition and disputes with Vauxhall Bridge
In 1806, a scheme was proposed by Ralph Dodd to open the south bank of the Thames opposite Westminster and London for development, by building a new major road from Hyde Park Corner to Kennington and Greenwich, crossing the river at Vauxhall, about halfway between Battersea Bridge and Westminster Bridge. The Battersea Bridge Company were concerned about the potential loss of custom, and petitioned Parliament against the scheme, stating that " is a well known adventurer and Speculist, and the projector of numerous undertakings upon a large scale most if not all of which have failed", and the bill was abandoned. However, in 1809 a new bill was presented to Parliament for a bridge at Vauxhall, this time obliging the operators of the new bridge to compensate the Battersea Bridge Company for any losses, and the company allowed it to pass as the Vauxhall Bridge Act 1809 and accepted compensation. The act obliged the Vauxhall Bridge Company to reimburse the Battersea Bridge Company for any loss in revenue caused by the new bridge.After many delays and setbacks, the new bridge at Vauxhall opened on 4 June 1816. However, the Vauxhall Bridge Company failed to pay the agreed compensation to the Battersea Bridge Company and were taken to court. After a legal dispute lasting five years, a judgment was made in favour of the Battersea Bridge Company, with the Vauxhall Bridge Company being obliged to pay £8,234 compensation.
Old Battersea Bridge in art
Although the bridge was inconvenient for its users and flimsily constructed, as the last surviving wooden bridge on the Thames in the London area it was considered an important landmark, and many leading artists of the period were attracted to it. Camille Pissarro, J. M. W. Turner, John Sell Cotman and John Atkinson Grimshaw produced significant paintings of the bridge. Walter Greaves, whose family owned a boathouse adjacent to the bridge and whose father had been boatman to Turner, painted numerous scenes of the bridge. Local resident and mentor to Greaves James McNeill Whistler created many images of it, including the influential Hokusai-inspired Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, in which the dimensions of the bridge are intentionally distorted and Chelsea Old Church and the newly built Albert Bridge are visible through a stylised London fog.Whistler's Nocturne series achieved notoriety in 1877, when influential critic John Ruskin visited an exhibition of the series at the Grosvenor Gallery. He wrote of the painting Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, that Whistler was "asking two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face". Whistler sued for libel, the case reaching the courts in 1878. The judge in the case caused laughter in the court when, referring to Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, he asked Whistler "Which part of the picture is the bridge?"; the case ended with Whistler awarded token damages of one farthing.
In 1905, Nocturne: Blue and Gold became the first significant acquisition by the newly formed National Art Collections Fund, and is now in Tate Britain.
Takeover and public ownership
A more modern and convenient competing bridge opened nearby at Chelsea Bridge in 1858, and usage of Battersea Bridge fell sharply. There were serious public concerns about the safety of the bridge by this time, after an 1844 incident in which a woman was murdered on the bridge in view of one of the toll collectors, who did not intervene because both parties had paid their fares.The new Albert Bridge opened in 1873, less than from Battersea Bridge. Mindful of the impact the new bridge would have on older bridge's financial viability, the Albert Bridge Act 1864 authorising the Albert Bridge compelled the Albert Bridge Company to purchase Battersea Bridge at the time of the new bridge's opening and to compensate the owners of Battersea Bridge with £3,000 per annum until the new bridge opened, and so Battersea Bridge was bought outright by the Albert Bridge Company in 1873. By this time the bridge was in extremely poor condition, and there were many calls from local residents for it to be demolished. As an interim measure, the Albert Bridge's architect Rowland Mason Ordish strengthened the foundations of the bridge with concrete while debate continued as to its future.
The Metropolis Toll Bridges Act 1877 was passed, which allowed the Metropolitan Board of Works to buy all London bridges between Hammersmith and Waterloo Bridges and free them from tolls, and in 1879 the Board of Works bought Albert and Battersea bridges for a combined cost of £170,000 and the tolls were removed from both bridges.
Inspections by the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, Sir Joseph Bazalgette, following the purchase found that Battersea Bridge was in such poor condition that it was unable to be repaired safely. In 1883 it was restricted to pedestrian traffic only, and in 1885 it was demolished to make way for a new bridge designed by Bazalgette.