Westminster Bridge

Stand still for a moment and feel the bridge under your feet. Buses rumble across, and the deck carries a faint vibration up through your shoes. Below, the Thames moves brown and quick, pulling past the stone piers. The wind comes straight off the water here, and it smells of river mud and cold air. To one side, the Houses of Parliament rise in pale golden stone. You are standing on Westminster Bridge, one of the most watched crossings in London.

Before we get to the history, look down at the railings and the paintwork. The bridge is green, a soft, slightly faded green. That colour is a deliberate choice. It matches the green leather benches in the House of Commons, the chamber of Parliament closest to this end of the bridge. Now look upstream, past the Palace, to the next bridge along. That one is Lambeth Bridge, and it is painted red. Red is the colour of the House of Lords. Parliament sits between them, framed by its own colours.

For centuries, central London had only one bridge across the Thames. That was London Bridge, further downstream in the old City. Anyone else who wanted to cross used a boat. Thousands of watermen made their living rowing passengers back and forth. When a second bridge was proposed here at Westminster, the watermen objected. A bridge would take away their trade. The government eventually paid compensation, and work went ahead in the 1730s.

The first Westminster Bridge opened in 1750. It was designed by Charles Labelye, a Swiss-born engineer working in England. It was a stone bridge with many arches, and for its time it was a major engineering project. Building foundations in a fast, tidal river was difficult and risky. Labelye used large timber caissons, which are watertight boxes sunk into the riverbed, to set his piers. But the river was hard on his work. Over the following decades, the foundations began to settle and shift.

It was on that first stone bridge that William Wordsworth stood one early morning in 1802. He wrote a sonnet called Composed upon Westminster Bridge. Its most famous line is simple: Earth has not anything to show more fair. He described the city sleeping, its ships, towers and domes lying open to the fields and sky. It is worth remembering that the London he saw was quieter and much smaller. Yet the view he praised, the river opening out with the city on both banks, is still here.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the old bridge was failing. Repairs could not keep up with the subsidence. At the same time, a new Palace of Westminster was rising beside the river. The old palace had burned down in 1834, and the new building needed a bridge that suited it. So the old crossing was replaced. The bridge you are standing on opened in 1862, designed by the engineer Thomas Page. Charles Barry, the architect of the new Palace, advised on the design.

This bridge is built of cast iron. It crosses the river in seven shallow arches resting on granite piers. Lean carefully over the parapet and you can see the curve of the ironwork underneath. Look at the decoration too. The spandrels, the panels above each arch, carry Gothic-style details. They echo the pointed windows and tracery of the Palace beside you. Even the lamp standards follow the same style. Barry's influence is visible from end to end.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The Thames at this point is tidal. Twice a day the sea pushes water back up the river, and twice a day it drains away. The difference between high and low water is several metres. At low tide, look along the riverbanks below the Palace. You may see exposed mud and the darker stain on the walls where the water usually reaches. Come back a few hours later and the same view looks completely different.

Now turn toward the Westminster end of the bridge. On a tall pedestal near the riverside steps stands a bronze chariot. It shows Boudica, the queen of the Iceni tribe, who led a revolt against Roman rule in Britain in the first century. Her daughters ride beside her, and the horses rear forward. The sculptor was Thomas Thornycroft, who worked on it in the Victorian era. It was finally put in place here at the start of the twentieth century. There is an irony in this placement. The Romans founded London, and Boudica's army burned it.

At the opposite, southern end of the bridge, look for a large pale lion on a plinth. This is the South Bank Lion. It is made of Coade stone, a hard ceramic material produced in London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Coade stone was popular because it resisted weather far better than many natural stones. The lion once stood on a brewery on the south bank. When that site was cleared, the lion was saved and later moved here. Its surface is still remarkably crisp.

Artists have returned to this view again and again. Claude Monet, the French painter, spent time in London in the early 1870s and painted the Thames near Westminster. He was drawn to the fog and the soft, uncertain light on the water. If you visit on a grey morning, you will understand why. The towers of Parliament lose their edges. The river and sky can turn almost the same colour. Painters loved this city most when it was hardest to see clearly.

This bridge has also seen sadness. In March 2017, a terrorist attack took place here, and people lost their lives on this pavement. Londoners came afterwards to leave flowers and to stand quietly. Today, the bridge is busy again with commuters, tourists and street performers. The safety barriers along the edge of the road are one quiet reminder of that day. Many people cross without knowing. It is enough to simply be aware.

Take a final look around before you move on. To the north, the clock tower, officially called the Elizabeth Tower, holds the great bell known as Big Ben. Listen for it on the hour. To the east, across the water, the London Eye turns slowly beside the white bulk of County Hall. Below you, boats push against the current toward the piers. The view has changed a great deal since Wordsworth stood here. But the river still runs under these arches, and the city still opens out on both sides.