19 July: Lambeth Bridge

On this date in 1932 Lambeth Bridge opened. 10 things you might not know about Lambeth Bridge.

1. Thanks to the Archbishops of Canterbury, whose London residence is at Lambeth Palace, there has been some kind of river crossing at the site of Lambeth Bridge since at least 1367, when it's recorded that the clerks of chancery were paid £16 for a barge to ferry the then Archbishop, Simon, across the river.
2. By 1513 there was a ferry here for Horses and horsedrawn carriages. The horseferry between the Palace of Westminster and Lambeth Palace was the only way to get across the Thames in central London for quite some time. The Archbishop of Canterbury owned the lease to the ferry which came to an end in 1750 when Westminster Bridge opened. Lambeth Palace had a landing stage where the Archbishop received important visitors. Today, all that's left of the horse ferry is the road that once led to it - Horseferry Road.
3. As early as 1664 people wanted a bridge at Lambeth, but the ferry owners blocked it. Finally in 1737, an act of Parliament was passed to put a bridge there but it wasn't built until 1861. That bridge was a suspension bridge 828 feet (252.4 m) long, designed by Peter W. Barlow, which cost £48,924 to build. It wasn't a great success. It has a steep incline which made crossing in a horse and carriage difficult, so it was used mostly as a footbridge. It was closed to vehicles in 1910 because The girders and cables were already starting to deteriorate.
4. The bridge that is there now was opened in 1932 by King George V and Queen Mary. It was designed by engineer Sir George Humphreys and architects Sir Reginald Blomfield and G. Topham Forrest. It is a five span steel arch.
5. It is 236.5m long and 18m wide. It carries the Lambeth Road and has three lanes, one of which is for Buses only.
6. It is painted Red for a reason - the red colour scheme matches the seats in the House of Lords. The Houses of Parliament are located on the north bank between Lambeth and Westminster Bridges. The House of Lords is nearest to Lambeth Bridge. Westminster Bridge, nearer to the House of Commons, is painted Green to match the seats in there.
7. The crests on the sides of Lambeth Bridge represent the London County Council, which was responsible for building it.
8. The objects on top of the obelisks at either end are said by some to be Pineapples, placed there as a tribute to John Tradescant the younger, head gardener to Charles I, famous for growing the first pineapples in Britain. He is buried nearby, in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth. However, this is merely an urban myth. The objects are actually pine cones. What they represent isn't quite so obvious. They could have been included by Masons as a symbol of enlightenment, or they could represent ancient symbols of hospitality or eternal life.
9. Lambeth Bridge was the first Thames Bridge to be tunnelled beneath to provide pedestrian access along the embankment, in 1965.
10. Lambeth Bridge has appeared in several films. It was used as a locaton for Woody Allen's Match Point; The Greater Good; the James Bond film Spectre (in which a boat and helicopter pass over and under it); Fast And Furious 6 (in which the bridge and the buildings around it stand in for Moscow); the Jackie Chan film The Foreigner (in which a bus explodes on the bridge, freaking out a few passers by who weren't in the know during filming) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban (in which the Knight Bus races over the bridge squeezing between two regular London buses.