No wobbles today!

March 4th, 2014, 1pm

The sun was shining on and off at lunchtime today so I decided to dash to the station and travel 3 stops to Blackfrairs so that I could take some pictures in full daylight from this wonderful station that spans the River Thames (as I usually cross only at sunrise and sunset at this time of year). I expect I’ll post a few pictures over the next few days, but for today I’ll settle just for this one.

Any city built on a river needs bridges, and London certainly has its fair share. Most are for vehicles and pedestrians. Some are for trains. But very few are for pedestrians only, and this is one of them.

This is the famous Wobbly Bridge across the Thames between the City and Bankside, opened in 2000. The official name is the London Millennium Footbridge, but most people refer to it simply as the Millennium Bridge or the Wobbly Bridge. The nickname arose because on the very day it was opened to the public it was found to wobble quite alarmingly from side to side, resulting in the bridge being closed just a few days after opening. It remained closed for another two years while engineers came up with a fix, the outcome being that it no longer wobbles, which for many is rather disappointing!


Addendum:
My thanks to Christine for reminding me that this is the bridge that is destroyed by the Death Eaters in the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:

Death_Eaters_destroyed_the_Millennium_Br

Maria, Jacob, Paul, Christine and 8 others said thanks.

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Adrian Tribe

A follower of Jesus Christ, a husband and father, a Kentish Man (not a Man of Kent), a commuter to London

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