6th November: Blackfriars Bridge

Blackfriars Bridge opened on this date in 1869. Here are ten things you might not know about Blackfriars Bridge:

1. Blackfriars Bridge was the third bridge to be built over the Thames after London Bridge and Westminster Bridge.
2. Its original name was "William Pitt Bridge" after the Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder, but people generally referred to it by the informal name relating to the area in which it stood.
3. The first bridge on the site was built of Portland stone, but the workmanship was rubbish and it constantly needed repairing and eventually it was decided to tear it down and start again. The result was the bridge which stands there today and which was opened by Queen Victoria in 1869.
4. The present bridge is 923 feet (281 m) long and 105 feet (32 m).
5. It is owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation.
6. The bridge was given Grade II listed status in 1972.
7. On the piers of the bridge are stone carvings of water birds by sculptor John Birnie Philip. On the East (downstream) side (i.e. the side closest to the Thames Estuary and North Sea), the carvings are of marine life and seabirds; those on the West (upstream) side are of freshwater birds – because Blackfriars is the tidal turning point.
8. The bridge was dedicated to Queen Victoria and there is a statue of her on its north side.
9. The River Fleet empties into the Thames under the north end of Blackfriars Bridge.
10. In June 1982, the body of Roberto Calvi, a former chairman of Italy's largest private bank, was found hanging from one of its arches with five bricks and around $14,000 in three different currencies in his pockets. Calvi's death was initially treated as suicide, but in 2002 forensic experts concluded that he'd been murdered by the Mafia. In 2005, five suspected members of the Mafia were tried in Rome for Calvi's murder, but all were acquitted in June 2007 due to lack of evidence.