This rather innocuous-looking bridge over the River Thames is the latest in a long line of bridges to stand on this spot and lay claim to the name London Bridge.

This current bridge opened in 1973, but a bridge has existed at or near this very spot since the Roman occupation of the area, around 2,000 years ago. There were a number of bridges during this time, but it wasn’t until 1209 that a truly great bridge was erected.

The Medieval London Bridge took a seriously lengthy 33 years to build, but it would have been pretty impressive in its day, as it was completely covered in shops set in the base of buildings seven stories tall!

For 600 years the Medieval bridge was a bustling and relatively safe haven in the centre of London, but eventually it was decided that it was too old, narrow and decrepit¹ to serve Londoners any longer, and that it should be replaced.

In 1799 Thomas Telford proposed a bridge with a single iron arch that would span the entire river, but it was rejected due to worries about feasibility. The bridge that was finally completed in 1831 was built 30 m west of the Medieval one, and was designed by Scots civil engineer John Rennie.

By 1896 the “New” London bridge had become the busiest point in London (with around 9,000 people crossing every hour), so it was widened by 4 metres to combat the acute congestion. On the disused railway track at the old Swelltor Quarry on Dartmoor, you can still see left over granite pillars that were quarried as part of this process, but never used.

Unfortunately the bridge couldn’t cope with the extra weight – after widening, it began to sink by about 3 cm every 8 years, meaning that yet another new bridge would be required.

However, instead of knocking the bridge down, in 1967 the City of London council hit upon the brilliant idea of putting the bridge up for sale; and on 18 April 1968, Rennie’s bridge was sold to the American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for $2.4m dollars, and subsequently moved, brick-by-brick to Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

The story goes that McCulloch mistakenly believed he was buying (the frankly much more desirable) Tower Bridge, but of course this has been vehemently denied. Regardless, the reconstructed London Bridge forms the centrepiece of a English-style theme park that has since become Arizona’s second most popular tourist attraction, being only less-visited than the Grand Canyon.

(London Bridge was previously featured back in 2006 before the advent of Street View).

Today, the fourteenth of July, is the French national holiday that is known in English as Bastille day.

The Bastille, a Parisian prison, was stormed on this day in 1789. Along with the Tennis Court Oath, it was the successful capture of the Bastille that marked the beginning of the French Revolution.

The Bastille was actually demolished that same year, and in its location is now Place de la Bastille which, fittingly for Paris, is now a large roundabout. Don’t be fooled however, as the July column at the centre is actually a monument to a different revolution (the one when King Charles X was overthrown in 1830).

To the south-east is the Opéra Bastille, which was completed in 1989 and was intended to replace the old Opéra Garnier (Wikipedia) as the home of the National Opera of Paris. However such is the demand for opera in Paris that the two buildings are both still used – along with three others!

Looking around the streets you can see where the walls of the Bastille used to stand marked out with lighter coloured paving stones. During excavation for the Paris Metro in 1899, partial remains of one of the fort’s towers were discovered and put on display in the nearby Square Galli.

Thanks to Julien, who originally posted a French version of this post over at Google Sightseeing Français!

This is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, or to give it its full Welsh name, Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte¹, which carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee in north east Wales, and which has recently been recognised as one of the most important engineering accomplishments of all time.

Completed over 200 years ago, this stunningly beautiful engineering masterpiece was designed by everyone’s favourite² civil engineer Thomas Telford (1757 – 1834), and to this day it remains the longest and highest aqueduct in the UK.

Despite scepticism at the time (this was the late 1700s after all), Telford was convinced he could build a cast iron trough to carry the canal over the massive 307 metre span of the valley. After all, he had seen his methods succeed at Longdon-on-Tern, where he had designed the world’s first cast iron navigable aqueduct.

Originally constructed as part of the now long-abandoned Shrewsbury Canal, today the Longdon-on-Tern aqueduct still sits astride the River Tern, and is not only Grade I listed but is also a scheduled ancient monument.

Despite this previous experience, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is truly a testament to Telford’s genius. The cast iron trough he designed soars 38 metres above the valley floor, regularly carrying narrowboats safely³ over the valley.

In ultimate recognition of its importance, on the 27th of June 2009, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, joining a list of nearly 900 other places of great cultural or physical significance that includes such treasures as the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and Stonehenge.

Thanks to the ever on-the-ball Jonathan Rawle. See the Wikipedia links in this article for more info, or explore Wikipedia’s list of works by Thomas Telford.

Despite Indonesia having more Muslims than any other nation in the world, making up 87% of its total population, the government’s pseudo-religious tolerance¹ is seen within several religious buildings, all standing within a few city blocks of Indonesia’s central seat of power and the highest court in the land.

With over 200 million Muslims in a country whose “religious freedom” is mere decades old it is not difficult to see the significance of these Muslim, Hindu, and Christian influenced buildings.

What you don’t expect to see in the heart of Indonesia is a 100 year old Catholic cathedral. Yet, there it is.

The Central Catholic Cathedral (Gereja Katedral) is the seat of the Archbishop of Jakarta. The current building is a rebuild of the original that was burnt down in the mid-1800s. On Christmas Eve, 2004, the church was the target of a blast bomb attack.

What you do expect to see in a highly populated Muslim country is a mosque. Just a 150 meters from the great doors of the Cathedral are the great halls of the largest mosque in Southeast Asia.

What is significant about The Independence Mosque (Istiqlal Mosque), besides its size, is that its designer was not a Muslim at all. In fact, he was a Christian architect that won the job as part of a contest held by the government in the 1960s. The mosque would take 17 years to build.

Just one block away from The Independence, the same Christian architect, Frederich Silaban, designed another one of Jakarta’s treasured monuments, the National Monument (Monumen Nasional or MONAS); this time taking his influences primarily from the Hindu religion.

Taking 14 years to build, the National Monment is a 137m tall tower that supposedly symbolises the fight for Indonesia’s independence. Visitors generally stand for hours in long lines while they wait to ride up the old, rickety 11-passenger elevator up the deliberately phallic-looking shaft to the central viewing platform. The design of the monument supposedly “combines elements of the male and female physiology”, symbolising fertility in the Hindu-Javanese tradition.

All three of these religiously influenced buildings demonstrate, to a certain extent, Indonesia’s religious tolerance. For if we just cross the street from the National Monument, we will come upon the Presidential Palace (Istana Merdeka) and the Supreme Court of Justice (Mahkama Agung); arguably the nation’s most important political buildings.

The Presidential Palace / The Supreme Court of Justice

From the viewing platform of the National Monument tourists can photograph all of the buildings discussed here within a single panoramic frame. The President’s home, the Supreme Court, the largest mosque in SE Asia, and the central Catholic cathedral all from an Hindu-influenced monument. An impressive vista for sure.

Thanks to Perry Ismangil.

This year’s Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts drew 177,000 party people to deepest Somerset, reaffirming Glastonbury’s position as the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world.

Some went for the music. Some went for the mud. A few might even have gone for Bruce Springsteen – but no doubt a good (if slightly damp) time was had by all.

Despite its name, the festival is not actually held in Glastonbury, but at Worthy Farm in the village of Pilton, some six miles to the east.¹ Google’s aerial photos clearly weren’t taken at the end of June, as they reveal a remarkably unsullied rural scene – the site is still a working dairy farm. The famous Pyramid Stage is missing, but the foundations (and surrounding dried mud) can clearly be seen, as can the electricity pylons that cross the site.

Of the second stage (known, with a great deal of imagination, as the Other Stage), there is no sign at all – it is situated here, in a peaceful-looking field. (If you squint a bit, perhaps you can just make out a vague dark semicircular area.)

Near the southern edge of the site, you can see the stone circle, a favourite hippy hangout that was built for the festival by a druid, no less.

“Glasto” will be 40 years old next year, but it remains a brief annual blip of madness in the Worthy Farm routine. Once the music is over, the stages dismantled, the last hungover revellers departed and the vast quantities of rubbish cleaned up, Pilton’s cows can once again live in peace – until next time.

It’s interesting to compare this map of this year’s festival site to the aerial photos, so you can see what happened where.

Thanks to Barry.