Blackfriars Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge carries the road from the City to Southwark across five wrought-iron arches, and it has done so since 1869, when Queen Victoria opened it on the same day as Holborn Viaduct. The engineer was Joseph Cubitt. The bridge was widened in 1910 to take trams, and the stone piers, with their granite columns and carved capitals, are what most people notice.
Those capitals are worth a closer look. The birds carved on the upstream side are freshwater birds, and those on the downstream side are seabirds, marking the point where, in the sculptor’s mind at least, the river turned from a country river to a tidal one. The River Fleet, London’s largest lost river, enters the Thames beneath the northern end of the bridge, unseen.
The first Blackfriars Bridge stood on the same site from 1769, designed by Robert Mylne, and gave its name to the district, which takes its own name from the Dominican friary that stood there until Henry VIII dissolved it.
The bridge sits at the western edge of the City, so from most high viewpoints it is the crossing just beyond St Paul’s, with the railway bridge and Blackfriars station immediately beside it and One Blackfriars rising at its southern end. In the views from the top of The Shard the red arches are clear once you zoom in.
The thumbnails below open each image at full resolution.
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Winter Sun London
London Skyline Gigapixel Captured from the roof of the Leadenhall Building, this London skyline gigapixel looks out over London in the low January sun. This is one of the times of day that light and the clouds can alter swiftly. Thus to capture a high resolution image in the few instants, before you lose that…
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Shard View at Night Panorama
I captured this panorama of the London skyline at night from the Shard at around the 35th floor, whilst the building was still under construction. The Shard’s height has given me the opportunity to show the London cityscape from a new angle, looking down on the Thames as it snakes through the city from London…
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The Shard London Bridge – Blue Hour
The Shard is one of London’s most exciting buildings. It was completed in 2012, then becoming the tallest building in the European Union. I shot views from the Shard for the developer, and the sheer height of the building has made it one of the most exciting series of cityscapes I have worked on –…
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Waterloo Sunset Panorama
Panoramic view looking up the River Thames from Waterloo Bridge along London’s South Bank, past the National Theatre towards Blackfriars Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral to the skyscrapers of the City of London, the Gherkin and Tower 42. Click the full screen button and zoom in to explore the details.