From http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Picture: David Willoughby / Barcroft Media (16 Picture)
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1. These photographs of Tower Bridge being constructed have been unveiled after a stash of hundred-year-old photos were found in a skip. The 50 sepia pictures, the most recent of which date back to 1892, reveal in incredible detail the ingenuity behind one of the capital’s most popular tourist destinations.
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2. The discarded pictures, which were retrieved by a caretaker who was looking after a building being turned into flats in 2006, have spent the last five years in a carrier bag underneath his bed. The 59-year-old, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that after the occupants of the Westminster office building moved out, the album and a number of documents were thrown into a skip outside. He said: “I took the ledgers to the Tower Bridge Museum because I thought they might have some historical value. I told the man at the museum that I had also found some photos but he told me they already had plenty of those. I didnt know what to do with them so I wrapped them in some brown paper and put them in a bag under the bed.”
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3. It wasn’t until earlier this month, when the owner of the photos mentioned them to his neighbour, City of Westminster tour guide Peter Berthoud, that the significance of the find fully emerged. Mr Berthoud, an expert in the history of London who gives guided tours around famous landmarks including Tower Bridge, said he was gobsmacked by the haul: “When my neighbour gave me a disk with the images on I just couldn’t believe it. I spent hours going through my books to see if these pictures were already around, but I couldn’t see them anywhere – they are totally unique.
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4. “Quite simply Tower Bridge is the world’s most iconic bridge, and it’s the only bridge over the Thames which has never needed to be replaced at some point. It combines elements of a suspension bridge, a high level bridge and a bascule which allows it to open for ships to pass. Nothing had ever been made like it before, and nothing since.”
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5. The images reveal the bridge is a sturdy steel frame beneath the instantly recognisable stone-cladding. “People are always surprised when I tell them Tower Bridge is a steel bridge, as the stone cladding is so recognisable,” said Mr Berthoud. He said that the bridge’s original architect, Horace Jones, wanted to clad the bridge in brick; however, following his death he was succeeded as architect by John Wolfe-Barry who decreed the bridge should be clad in stone.
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6. Mr Berthoud said: “My favourite pictures of the simple, humble guys building the bridge, unaware that what they are making will be so historic. People are so used to seeing images of the Empire State Building being built, but this is part of British history being created 50 years earlier.”
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7. The construction of Tower Bridge was begun in 1886, and the bridge was finished in 1894.
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16. Peter Berthoud is pictured with the sepia photographs of the construction of Tower Bridge, at his home in London
Picture: Nick Obank / Barcroft Media
