After three years and 22,000 gallons of paint, the wraps have come off Tower Bridge in London revealing the bridge in all its glory and preparing it to be opened for the first time since last October.
Specialist painters have been re-coating the bridge in the traditional blue and white livery, although until the Queen’s Coronation the bridge was actually a rather bland brown. The job even involved abseiling at one point which must be quite hard to find painter with all those skills.
The bridge was originally opened by the Prince of Wales on June 30th 1894, although even the design we see today was nothing like the original idea proposed by Sir Horace Jones. His design included the two towers we see today, but the middle would have been a structure similar to the Sydney Harbour Bridge except it would open, and the towers would have been red brick.
Tower Bridge Exhibition: This design is part of the new Tower Bridge exhibition which shows amongst other things, all the designs which were submitted for the bridge.
One of the most “interesting” ideas was similar to the current design, except cars would be taken one by one by a lift up the towers, over the top and down the other side. This was to prevent the busy Thames waterway being interrupted. A better idea, would have been a similar design to the Middlesborough Transporter Bridge.
Another part of the exhibition shows how the machinery of the opening bridge operates. This involves some massive counterweights and one person standing in a control room moving a lever controlling the speed of the opening.
There’s more details of how Tower Bridge was painted on the Tower Bridge restoration web site.
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