11 June: Hammersmith Bridge

On this date in 1887 Hammersmith Bridge opened. Here are 10 things you might not know about Hammersmith Bridge.

1. The bridge which stands on the site today is the second bridge to be built there. The first one was designed by William Tierney Clark and opened in 1827. It was the first suspension bridge over the River Thames.
2. By the 1850s, however, there were concerns that this bridge wasn't strong enough. In the 1860s, when crowds gathered on the bridge to watch the boat race (as Hammersmith Bridge was the half way point), as about 11,000 people moved from side to side to watch the race, the bridge actually swayed from side to side.
3. The current bridge was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and was opened by the Prince of Wales on 11 June 1887.
4. When it was first built, it was painted Pink - that was the undercoat - it was a year before Bazalgette's chosen colour of Green was painted over the top.
5. This one isn't strong enough, either. There's more traffic now than there was in 1887 so there's still a problem. Traffic had to be severely restricted with only one Bus in either direction allowed on it at a time. In April 2019 it was closed to motor traffic completely although people can still walk or cycle across.
6. Hammersmith Bridge is 700 feet (210 m) long and 43 feet (13 m) wide.
7. It is also the lowest bridge over the river Thames, with just 12 feet (3.6m) water clearance at high tide.
8. There is a motif on the bridge made up of seven coats of arms. In the middle is the present Royal Arms of the United Kingdom and surrounding it are (clockwise from the left): the coat of arms of the City of London; Kent; Guildford; the original coat of arms of the City of Westminster (with the portcullis); the coat of arms of Colchester; and Middlesex (in its original form without the crown). They are not, however, painted in their original colours but in gold and green.
9. There is a plaque on the bridge commemotating the bravery of one Lieutenant Charles Campbell Wood from Bloemfontein in South Africa, who dived from the bridge in December 1919 to save a drowning woman. The woman survived but Campbell Wood died of tetanus contracted from his injuries two weeks later.
10. His was not the last act of bravery the bridge has seen. In 1939, a Chiswick hairdresser called Maurice Childs was walking home across Hammersmith Bridge when he spotted a smoking suitcase on the pavement. Childs threw the case, which contained an IRA bomb, into the river where it exploded, producing a 60-foot (18m) column of water. Childs was later awarded an MBE.

See Also
Albert Bridge
Battersea Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge
Cheslea Bridge 
London Bridge
Millennium Bridge 
Putney Bridge 
Southwark Bridge
Tower Bridge 

Wandsworth Bridge

Waterloo Bridge
Westminster Bridge 

The Raiders Trilogy

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Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from. 
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.