Topical Tens: 30th June: Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge was opened on this day in 1894 by the then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.

Before the bridge was built, anyone wanting to cross the river there would have had to use the Tower Subway - a 410-metre tunnel under the river, and pay half a penny for the privilege. The tunnel is still there, but now it's a water main.
It was eventually decided that a bridge was needed but planners faced a problem - it was still important for tall ships to be able to sail up the Thames. A competition was held to design the bridge. Over 50 designers entered, including civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, whose major achievement was the creation of a sewer network for central London. Some of the designs were quite wacky. Bazalgette's design was rejected because of a lack of sufficient headroom. It took the judging committee eight years to pick a winner, and in the end, they chose a design by Sir Horace Jones, the City Architect, who was actually on the committee.
It took as long to decide on the designer as it did to build the actual bridge, which also took eight years. It cost £1,184,000 to build, over £100 million in today's money. It took over 400 workers, over 70000 tons of concrete and 11,000 tons of steel to construct the bridge, which is is 244 metres long; each tower is 65 metres high. The pedestrian walkways are over 40 metres above the river at high tide. The central span is 200 feet (61m).
It is the only bridge on the Thames which can be raised. The central span which carries the A100 road is split into two bascules which can be raised to an angle of 86 degrees to allow a ship to pass through. Each bascule weighs over a thousand tons and is moved by means of a hydraulic engine. It takes 61 seconds to raise the bascules. At one time this would happen about 50 times a day but nowadays it's down to four or five times a week.
Ship owners who want to pass through don't have to pay a charge but they do have to give 24 hours notice. River traffic always has priority over road traffic, so if you arrive at the bridge in your car at the same time as a ship, you'll face a Red traffic light and probably a queue. No exceptions - even if you are President of the United States of America, you'll still have to wait, as Bill Clinton found out in 1997 when his motorcade was split because a barge named Gladys was scheduled to pass through. The authorities at Tower Bridge had tried to warn the President that this might happen, but the American Embassy didn't answer the phone.
The most exciting London Bus ride ever must have been if you'd happened to catch a number 78 bus one December day in 1952. In those days the procedure for opening the bridge wasn't Traffic Lights, but a warning bell and gates which had to be closed by a gateman who would then signal to the watchman that the bridge was clear. A relief watchman missed the signal and started opening the bridge while the double decker bus was still on it. The quick thinking driver, one Albert Gunton, put his foot down and the bus jumped the 3ft (0.91m) gap and dropped 6 feet (1.8m) onto the north bascule, which hadn't started to rise. Gunter was given £10 (equivalent to £260 in 2015) by the City Corporation to honour his act of bravery. No-one was hurt but it must have been a scary ride!
Tower Bridge is not called Tower Bridge because it has towers - it was actually named for the nearby Tower of London. People who don't know London frequently think Tower Bridge is called London Bridge, possibly because Tower Bridge is one of London's iconic buildings used on films to indicate that the action is taking place in London. London Bridge is a completely different bridge further along the river. There's a common urban myth that says an American millionaire bought the old London Bridge when it was being rebuilt, under the misconception that he was getting Tower Bridge.
It may be iconic and a favourite of people today, but it had its haters when it was first built, among them H.H. Statham, who called it "the vice of tawdriness and pretentiousness" and Frank Brangwyn who said that "A more absurd structure than the Tower Bridge was never thrown across a strategic river".
High above the road is a walkway which is sufficiently high that it never needs to be raised. It started off as a pedestrian walkway but pedestrians rarely used it because you had to climb a lot of steps to get to it, and it became a haunt for prostitutes and pickpockets. It closed in 1910 but re-opened in 1982 as part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition which can be visited for a fee.
Possibly because it's so iconic, Tower Bridge is occasionally used by people who want to protest about something, like the Fathers4Justice guy who climbed up it dressed as Spiderman, or the pensioner who drove a flock of two sheep across (which apparently one has a legal right to do) to make a point about the rights of older people being eroded away. The most spectacular protest was probably carried out by Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock in 1968. He was peed off because, in his opinion, there weren't enough aerial displays to mark the 50th anniversary of the RAF, and decided to stage one of his own. He flew his Hawker Hunter jet around the Houses of Parliament three times, over the RAF Memorial and topped it off by flying under the top span of Tower Bridge. He was arrested and discharged from the RAF on medical grounds without the chance to defend himself at a court martial.