LONDON BRIDGES.
ONCE more London is faced with the opportunity of doing the right thing in the right way, and once more there seems to be a likelihood, unless a serious and determined effort is made, that the opportunity will be lost. A Bill has been introduced into the House of Commons to provide for the construction of a new bridge over the Thames between the Blackfriars and Southwark bridges. The bridge proposed in the Bill is the outcome of the deliberations of the Bridge House Estates Committee of the City Corporation, and its position has been a subject of discussion for several months, since the plans of the Corporation were first published. According to these plans it is to start on the south side of the river, near the junction of Southwark Street and Great Guildford Street ; it will cross the river east of St. Paul's Pier by three spans, pass as a viaduct over Thames Street and Queen Victoria Street, and end on the South side of Cannon Street where it enters on St. Paul's Churchyard. It is to be eighty feet wide throughout, it is estimated to cost £1,646,983, and it is to be finished within ten years. Let us hope that when it is finished the original plan will have undergone some consider- able modifications.
The chief objection to the proposals of the City Corpora.. tion is the direction in which the bridge is made to run. It crosses the river so that the roadway continued from it will pass east of the apse of St. Paul's Cathedral. This means that the vista from the south side of the bridge across the river will end in a confused disarray of different buildings, with the apse just projecting on to the view from the left. But clearly the opportunity before the Corporation is to make the very most of the magnificent spectacle of St. Paul's and its superb dome. The bridge, instead of being planned to cross the river east of the cathedral, ought to be placed a little further to the west, and the road from Southwark Street ought to be driven almost due north across the river, so as to lead straight to the steps under the southern porch, with the great dome crowning the whole vista of the bridge from the south of the river. There can be no two opinions as to the merits of this position for the bridge, com- pared with that which is proposed by the City Corporation. considered, at all events, from an artistic or architectural point of view; but since the Corporation are said to have con- templated the idea of taking the bridge to the south porch of the Cathedral and to have decided against it, there must, pre- sumably, be some very strong reason which induced them to prefer a scheme which, from an Mathetio point of view, has no merit whatever. What, then, are the reasons which the Cor- poration put forward for preferring their scheme? In the first place there is said to be a difficulty of expense. If the bridge is made to run direct to the south porch of the cathedral, it is urged that it will be necessary to remove some exceedingly valuable warehouses which now front on the south side of St. Paul's churchyard, and that this removal would cost as much as a million. It is difficult to understand why this particular removal should entail so enormous an extra bill if the warehouses could be re-erected elsewhere : besides, these warehouses would only take the place of those which the Corporation propose to remove in any case. Next, it is urged that the alternative bridge, running straight towards the cathedral dome from the south, would be " skew " to the river, that is, not at right angles to its banks, and this, it is argued, would lead to engineering difficulties and thus to extra expense. But this, surely, is not an insuperable objection. The degree of " skewness " would be comparatively slight, and would not alarm an engineer; the piers, at right angles with the stream, could easily carry a roadway at a different angle. Thirdly, there is an objection to the alternative bridge on the score of difficulties of traffic. The City Corporation, we learn from an interview with Mr. J. W. Domoney, chairman of the Bridge House Estates Com- mittee, which appeared in Wednesday's Times, were influenced by two important considerations in deciding upon their plan. They want to relieve the congestion of traffic on the other bridges, and they hope to provide a new north and south main route through London. They point out that the roadway as they plan it will provide a thoroughfare running direct from the two great junctions of traffic in north and south London—the Angel at Islington and the Elephant and Castle. There is also a provision made in the Corporation plan for possible developments, which would link up the northern and southern tramway systems of the London County Council. As regards the provision of a northern highway running north and south, there is, doubtless, a certain convenience in taking the traffic directly east of St. Paul's ; but, on the other hand, this traffic would be per- petually holding up, and being held up by, the traffic running in and out of Cannon Street, whereas, if the bridge traffic is moved a little further west, the traffic passing north out of Cannon Street is at once libe- rated, and so is the bridge traffic passing west. The tramway question is a little more complicated, but the alternative scheme of the bridge surely should not present insuperable difficulties. In any case, those difficulties must be weighed against the unquestionable advantages of the alter- native scheme in respect of grandeur of design and the scope afforded for a real addition to the architecture of London. Here is an opportunity of a really worthy approach to the greatest building in London, built by the greatest of British architects. If a new bridge is to be thrown across the river, it could not be placed in a more superb position. The cathedral is there, waiting for the architect of the bridge ; yet the City Corporation plan calls upon the architect to leave the cathedral out of his calculations altogether. It is hard to believe that so splendid a chance is to be thrown away. As a letter signed by a number of our leading artists recently summed up the situation, the scheme for this new bridge, " when carried out, will leave an indelible mark on the scenery of the river, and, according as it is handled, may be a magnificent approach to St. Paul's Cathedral, or a monu- mental fiasco." We trust that when the possibilities involved are realised, as they surely have not been fully realised hitherto, the fiasco may be avoided.
The bridges across the London Thames offer a series of the most tempting opportunities to the imaginative builder. It cannot be said that the best was made of the chance which fell to the designer of the Tower Bridge. But other oppor- tunities still remain. There is the bridge which at present carries the railway traffic south from Charing Cross, for instance. A more lamentable blot on the scenery of the river could hardly be conceived. Here, between the noble simplicity of Waterloo Bridge and the splendid panorama of buildings behind the bridge at Westminster is a mean, murky iron affair connecting a hideous block of a railway station with the wharves and mudbanks of the Surrey side. Imagine the wharves and mudbanks swept away, and a stone terrace and flower gardens making a front on the Thames for Surrey, such as she deserves ; place the railway station south of the river; and then, instead of the squat iron structure which now carries the Charing Cross engines—with all the smoke and din inseparable from a great terminus—sub- stitute a bridge of stone to match the Waterloo and West- minster bridges. The whole scenery of the river would be changed and cleansed. But the imaginative builder need not for that matter, think only in stone for his bridges. Was it not Flarman who imagined an iron bridge built in the shape of four great eagles with wings outstretched across the river? The eagles themselves, set two and two, back to back, were to form the piers of the bridge, and the road was to be thrown along the spread of their wings, which were to touch at the centre of the arch over mid-stream? It would be interesting to compare the drawings of such a scheme as Flaxman's with the designs which will be submitted to the City Corporation. For a bridge, of all buildings, offers its architect the greatest scope for breadth and originality of treatment. A bridge connecting the north and south banks of a river running through a city such as London can hardly be conceived on too magnificent a scale. It should be carried across the river in the grand manner ; the sweep of its arches should be curves of splendour, it should be approached by noble stairways, its junction with the shore should be dignified with sculpture and statuary. Above all, the vista from the bridge itself should fit with the grandeur of its building. That is why it is imperative that the plan of the City Corporation should be reconsidered with the view, or rather the intention, of carrying the bridge to the north shore of the Thames in a direct line with the dome of our greatest cathedral.
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