Tower Bridge and the Tower of London
Tuesday, 23rd August 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Often incorrectly referred to as 'London Bridge', this is in fact Tower Bridge. There's a story which claims that when American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch bought the original London Bridge in 1968 and had it rebuilt in Lake Havasu City, Arizona (low-res only I'm afraid), he was under the impression that it was actually Tower Bridge that he was buying.
Tower Bridge isn't actually named for it's own towers, but for it's proximity to the nearby Tower of London, which is the home of the Beefeaters, the ravens with clipped wings and the Crown Jewels. The Tower doesn't just have one tower though, it has twenty-one!
Also of note in this frame is the HMS Belfast, a floating WWII memorial, and the Greater London Assembly building.
As ever, Wikipedia has loads more information about Tower Bridge, London Bridge, the Tower of London, HMS Belfast and the giant glass testicle Greater London Assembly building 😉
Thanks to Patrick, Phil Henry, Greg Askins, Azhar, Sam Quick, Darin, Sean, Damien Saunders and Anand Patil.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
At Lake Havasu City, they claim this story is false. “Look” they say “the bridge fits perfectly. Don’t you think someone spending all that money on a bridge would check it out, see it, measure it, and make sure it fits the space it’s intended for.”
However, footage of the reconstruction of the bridge at Lake Havasu shows bulldozers spreading out sand to narrow the lake at that point…
more about the raven & the raven master in a recent BBC news article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4098894.stm
pretty interesting, really
I work just a couple of minutes from here – I walk past the Tower of London to the Tube station here View Placemark every day. By the way, you can’t see it very well on this image, but the dark line running north to south at the centre of the pic, between the large brown building and the main east-west road, is one of the only remaining sections of the Roman wall around the City.
Incidentally I don’t think it’s true to say that Tower Bridge is “often” referred to as London Bridge – certainly the vast majority of the tourists I encounter know perfectly well what it’s called.
I’m sorry John Hartnup (and those who claim the bridge fits so therefore it can’t have been the wrong one)
Fact: London Bridge is less than 1 mile upstream from Tower Bridge. Fact: The Thames doesn’t taper significantly this far upstream
Therefore, the span of London Bridge and Tower Bridge is almost identical and arguments along this train of thought are clearly uninformed. I seriously doubt the claim (often quoted as fact) that McCulloch thought he was buying the other – as a rather successful businessman he is probably more competent than most when it comes to due diligence. Add to that the fact that McCulloch strongly denied these claims.
This “gem” is up there with the claim that Americans don’t get irony. Has anyone actually seen American comedies/sitcoms?
Disclosure: I am from NZ and do not care either way.
The note above claiming that bulldozers were seen narrowing the channell in Lake Havasu is also false. The bridge was reassembled on dry land. There was no Channel prior to the bridge. It was built on a peninsula, and then the channel was dug specifically for the ability to go under the newly assembled London Bridge which now connects mainland Airizona to the created island.