Touring London’s Tower Bridge

It’s a landmark known the world over, and no, it is not “London Bridge” and it is not falling down. It is London’s Tower Bridge. I took a tour with my family one afternoon while in London.

We previously saw this view of the Tower Bridge while touring the Tower of London, where we saw the Crown Jewels, a torture chamber, and where a monarch once slept.

We also saw it while taking a boating tour on the River Thames.

It is an interesting bridge in that is really a combination of a cable suspension bridge on each side, while the center portion is actually a drawbridge.

It’s an old bridge, but it is also a marvel of engineering and construction. Dedicated on behalf of Queen Victoria by the Prince of Wales way back in 1894.

The bridge has been around for a while, but it still carries both vehicular traffic and human pedestrians (dogs too!) on it. No, those vehicles are not on the wrong side of the road. They still drive on the left side of the road which is the right way to do it there.

There are two ways to get to the top of the Tower Bridge where, yes, you can walk across the top connections between the two towers. They do have a lift, but limit it to those with strollers, wheelchairs and the disabled.

This was an impressive bridge at the time it was built. Lots of concrete and more used. A lot of manual labor too.

The Tower Bridge offers a unique view of London.

There are glass panels in the walkway where you can look down and see the traffic traversing the bridge below.

The foot of my eldest son looks like it is stomping on a boat floating on the Thames. That particular boat is short enough that they do not have to raise the bridge, which can only be done with a permit filed weeks in advance. Or at scheduled times listed by the bridge on their website. Those are all by permit too.

Yes, you can sit on the glass. In addition, there is a mirror above the glass section so you can take your own self portrait with your camera. Also, would you believe, people get married up there too! None were happening at the time though.

Going back down is on the opposite tower, but it is also a few steps and again, the lift (an elevator to us Americans) is only available to those with strollers, wheelchairs or the disabled. Now on to the old engine room.

When the Tower Bridge was designed and built, coal-powered steam engines were the way to power the drawbridge. That took a lot of heat and steam on both sides of the bridge. This is one of the boilers. Of course, they don’t use steam now. But the old engine rooms are available to view.

The coal that created the steam in the boilers had to get to the engine room, and it was via one of these coal scuttles on a set of rails. Notice how it can tilt and dump its load of coal into the room before returning for another load.

These enormous flywheels were part of the huge steam engines that would pull the cables, lifting the drawbridge.

The specially built steam engines required specially designed tools for the regular maintenance needed to keep a steam engine running. Steam engines do need a lot of maintenance.

Water pipes, pumps and other equipment in the engine room of London’s Tower Bridge.

We started our bridge tour around 3 in the afternoon. Granted, it was February and the days are shorter, but the entire tour took more than two hours. So when we were finally done, it was late evening and the lights on the bridge were on and visible. A beautiful sight from the other side too.

That night we went up to the top of “The Shard,” which is London’s tallest building. From there you get great views of London and particularly the Tower Bridge.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of Tower Bridge.

In case you missed it, the first stop on my London tour was Westminster Abbey and Big Ben.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking down through the glass panel at the bridge road below.