Bridges which cross the River Thames - Caversham Bridge to Tower Bridge in London.

Having collected lots of water from various smaller rivers The River Thames from Reading on into London becomes ever wider and therefore bridges crossing the river are quite long sometimes multi-spanned structures. There are still some beautiful quite old bridges to look at between Caversham and Kew Bridge but also quite a few more modern concrete and quite featureless motorway and trunk road affairs too. One bridge on the way is of particular note - the beautiful Maidenhead Railway Bridge which was constructed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Please also take a look at our other topic which shows the smaller and often mediaeval bridges which cross the River Thames between Lechlade and Whitchurch.
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Isambard Kingdom Brunel's marvellous Maidenhead Railway Bridge.

One of Brunels's masterpeices - it was built to carry two Great Western Railway broad gauge railway lines over the Thames on the route from Paddington out to the West Country. The requirement was for the bridge to be able to span both the Thame's towpath and the navigation channel. Commenced in 1837, Brunel designed and constructed two brick arches which had a span of 128 feet but with a rise of just 24 feet - these were the widest and flatest such spans in the world. First used in 1839, later in the 1890s the bridge was widened to accommodate four standard gauge railway lines. Despite a fair amount of optimism about the design and durability of such a construction the bridge remains in full use today. One can only imagine what a picture a GWR King or Hall steam engine hauling it's carriages at high speed over The Thames must have looked like.

Generally about Tower Bridge in London, England.

Initially designed by Sir Horace Jones, engineered by Sir John Wolfe Barry and officially opened by The Prince of Wales in 1894, Tower Bridge is a bascule bridge (i.e. a drawbridge) and has two towers which are built onto two huge piers. The original design clad the bridge's steelwork with Portland stone and Cornish granite in order to fit the bridge into the surrounding area - in particular the adjacent Tower of London. Following the death of Horace Jones in 1887 Mr George D. Stevenson was appointed as designer and he had the facade altered into a Gothic style which really did (and does) fit in beautifully with the Tower of London.