Southwark Bridge

Stand still for a moment in the middle of the bridge. Feel the faint hum through the soles of your feet as a bus rolls past. Listen to the river below, slapping against the granite piers. Gulls cry over the water. On a grey morning the steel railings feel cold and slightly damp under your hand. And you may notice something unusual for central London. This crossing is often quiet. It is one of the calmest bridges on the Thames.

That quiet is part of its story. Southwark Bridge links the City of London on the north bank with Bankside on the south. Upstream, you can see the slim steel line of the Millennium Bridge. Downstream sits the Cannon Street railway bridge, and beyond it, London Bridge. Between these busier neighbours, this bridge has always been a little overlooked. For more than two centuries, it has been the river crossing that Londoners somehow forget to use.

The first bridge on this spot opened in 1819. It was designed by John Rennie, one of the great engineers of the age. Rennie also designed the old Waterloo Bridge and a new London Bridge. Here he built in cast iron, with three wide arches resting on stone piers. The central arch was enormous for its time. It was described as one of the longest cast-iron spans ever built. Londoners simply called it the Iron Bridge.

Here is the first surprise. Despite that engineering triumph, the original bridge was a commercial disappointment. It was built by a private company and charged a toll to cross. Nearby bridges were free, so most people walked a little further to avoid paying. The approach roads were also steep and awkward for horses pulling heavy carts. Traffic stayed thin. Later in the nineteenth century, the City of London bought the bridge and removed the toll.

The Iron Bridge found a second life in literature. Charles Dickens knew this stretch of the river well. As a boy, he saw his own father held in the Marshalsea, a debtors' prison in Southwark, only a short walk south of here. In his novel Little Dorrit, the heroine Amy Dorrit walks on the Iron Bridge. Dickens chose it partly because it was quiet. In a loud, crowded city, it was a place where two people could talk.

The bridge you are standing on now is not Rennie's. By the early twentieth century, the old iron structure was ageing, and its narrow arches were a problem for river traffic. It was taken down and replaced. The new bridge was designed by the architect Sir Ernest George, working with the engineering firm Mott and Hay. It opened in 1921. King George the Fifth and Queen Mary came to open it, and a plaque on the bridge still records the occasion.

Look at the shape of the bridge. Instead of three great arches, there are five steel arches. They are lower and more even, which made life easier for boats passing beneath. The piers are faced with granite. Above each pier, the stonework rises into small, rounded alcoves along the parapet. These are pleasant places to pause, lean out, and watch the tide move. The overall effect is calm and orderly rather than dramatic.

Now notice the colours. The steelwork is painted in shades of green and yellow. On a bright day it looks almost cheerful against the brown river. Each of the central London bridges has its own colour scheme, and this one is easy to recognise from the riverbank. It is worth looking back at the bridge from the south bank later. From there, the five low arches line up neatly across the water.

Here is a detail most visitors miss. This bridge is not paid for by taxes. It belongs to an ancient City of London charity, the Bridge House Estates, which has looked after bridges here since the Middle Ages. Today the charity is known as the City Bridge Foundation. It maintains Southwark Bridge alongside London Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, the Millennium Bridge, and Tower Bridge. Money from its property holdings keeps these crossings in repair.

Walk to the southern end and look for the pedestrian underpass beneath the bridge, close to the riverside path. On its wall is an engraved stone frieze showing a frost fair. Centuries ago, the Thames sometimes froze solid in hard winters. When it did, Londoners set up stalls, games, and fires on the ice itself. The last great frost fair took place in 1814, just a few years before the first bridge here opened. The frieze includes lines of verse, so take a moment to read them.

Why did the river stop freezing? Partly because the climate grew milder. But the bridges mattered too. Old London Bridge had many narrow arches that slowed the water and helped ice form. When it was replaced, and the river banks were later embanked, the Thames flowed faster through the city. Fast-moving water freezes far less easily. So the history of these crossings is also a history of the river itself.

The neighbourhoods at each end tell their own story. On the north bank lies the City, with its offices, narrow lanes, and the bulk of Cannon Street station. On the south bank lies Bankside. In the time of Shakespeare, this was a district of theatres, taverns, and bear-baiting rings, outside the strict control of the City. Today you will find the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe and the former power station that now houses Tate Modern, just a few minutes' walk upstream.

Before you leave, stand once more at the parapet and look east. Watch the water darken under the railway bridge. Listen for the rumble of a train crossing into Cannon Street. Then look west towards the Millennium Bridge, where crowds hurry between Saint Paul's and the gallery. Here, the pace is slower. This is still the quiet bridge, as it was in Dickens's day. Take that calm with you as you walk on.