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Tower bridge museum9/18/2023 ![]() Even more impressive are a pair of accumulators, huge iron-clad cylinders for building pressure, weighing over 100 tons each. You can see the huge boilers that fed power to the neighbouring engines used to raise and lower the drawbridges. You can see perfectly well, but taking decent photos through the plexiglass is rather difficult.īy contrast to the very popular walkway part of the experience, the Victorian Engine Rooms are relatively quiet and don't get nearly so many visitors, though I, for one, found them perhaps more interesting than the walkway views. ![]() Though it certainly is interesting, the sheer number of visitors walking over the plexiglass floor panels have left them rather less than crystal clear. ![]() Most visitors, however, come to take advantage of the newest addition to the Tower Bridge Experience the chance to look through a clear plexiglass floor of the walkway for views of the bridge surface beneath and the possibility of watching boats travel under the drawbridge. You can descend to see the Victorian Engine Room, with the original steam engines still in working order, and climb to the covered walkway high above the road surface for panoramic views across London. There was a high-level walkway for pedestrian traffic. The stone finish served a dual purpose of protecting the underlying steel frame and giving the bridge a more pleasing visual impact. The steel framework was encased in a mix of Portland stone and Cornish granite. Bridge construction took 8 years, and the hard work of 432 construction labourers to complete and used 11,000 tons of steel for the framework of the towers and walkways. To create the bridge, two huge piers were sunk into the mud of the riverbed to support the new bridge. The original engines and accumulators are still in place, in the Victorian Engine Room area of the Tower Bridge Exhibition. The original steam engines have been replaced by oil and electric engines, but the hydraulic-driven bascule system is still original. From start to finish the bascules can raise the bridge from 0 degrees angle to a maximum of 86 degrees in about 1 minute. Because the energy was 'stored', there was minimal delay in raising the bridge it could be manipulated up or down at a moment's notice. Tower Bridge is next to the Tower of London on the North Bank of the Thames and next to the “Beehive” Mayoral offices on the South Bank of the Thames.The energy created by the steam engines was stored in 6 large containers called accumulators, ready to be used at a moment's notice to raise and lower the bridge. LOCATION & CONTACTĪddress: Tower Bridge, Tower Bridge Road, London SE1 2UP You can see Tower Bridge on most of the river cruises available on the Thames and there are a range of options with latest prices here: Thames River Cruises.Īfter your visit to Tower Bridge, we’d recommend taking a walk down the re-developed South Bank of the Thames past the “Bee Hive” mayor’s offices to the Hays Galleria wharf which is full of restaurants and shops. A good place to view this is from the walkway in front of the Tower of London. ![]() If you want to catch this spectacle, check out the bridge opening times. One of the most magical sights on the Thames is to see Tower Bridge opening to allow boats to go through. The Tower Bridge Exhibition is open daily in the summer from 10am to 6.30pm and in the winter from 9.30am to 6pm. Adult admission is £8, children £3.40 and family tickets are also available (2012 prices). We’d recommend the Tower Bridge Exhibition which shows you how it works and how they built it. It takes you right up to the top of the towers and back down to the engine room. If you don’t want to see the exhibition and take the tour, you can of course just walk across the bridge for free and you get a great sense of the scale of the structure by doing this. Tower Bridge, built in the 1880s, is one of London’s most famous landmarks and it spans the River Thames near to the Tower of London. It’s a great piece of architecture and the workings inside are fascinating too. ![]()
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