Putney Bridge is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

bridge over the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...

in west London, linking

Putney Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ancient pa ...

on the south side with

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandswo ...

to the north. The bridge has medieval

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activitie ...

es beside its abutments:

St Mary's Church, Putney St. Mary's Church (in full, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin), Putney, is an Anglican church in Putney, London, sited next to the River Thames, beside the southern approach to Putney Bridge. There has been a centre of Christian worship on this si ...

is built on the south and All Saints Church, Fulham on the north bank. This close proximity of two churches by a major river is rare, another example being at Goring-on-Thames and Streatley, villages hemmed in by the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshir ...

(the Goring Gap). Before the first bridge was built in 1729, a ferry had shuttled between the two banks. The current format is three lanes southbound (including one bus lane) and one lane (plus cycle lane/bus stop) northbound. Putney High Street, a main approach, is part of a London hub for retail, offices, food, drink and entertainment. Putney Embankment hosts Putney Pier for riverboat services immediately south-west of the bridge as well as the capital's largest set of facilities in rowing. The Pier in the sport marks one end of the

Championship Course The Championship Course is a stretch of the River Thames between Mortlake and Putney in London, England. It is a well-established course for rowing races, particularly the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. The course is on the tidal reaches of ...

Position

The north side of the bridge is 120m

west-southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

of Putney Bridge Underground station, which is in the park-sandwiched Hurlingham neighbourhood of Fulham. Parkland to the west includes the gardens of Fulham Palace, historic home of the

Bishops of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...

. On the south side of the bridge are St Mary's Church and a rounded glass-prowed ship-shaped 21st-century building, Putney Wharf Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Putney.

History

First bridges

The first bridge of any kind between the two parishes of Fulham and Putney was built during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...

: after the Battle of Brentford in 1642, the Parliamentary forces built a bridge of boats between Fulham and Putney. According to an account from the period:

The Lord-Generall hath caused a bridge to be built upon barges and lighters over the Thames, between Fulham and Putney, to convey his army and artillery over into Surry, to follow the King's forces; and he hath ordered that forts shall be erected at each end thereof to guard it; but for the present the seamen, with long boats and shallops, full of ordnance and musketeers, lie there upon the river to secure it.

The story runs that "in 1720 Sir Robert Walpole (the following year considered the first

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

) was returning from seeing George I at Kingston on Thames and being in a hurry to get to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

rode together with his servant to Putney to take the ferry across to Fulham. The ferry boat was on the opposite side, however and the waterman, who was drinking in The Swan, ignored the calls of Sir Robert and his servant and they were obliged to take another route." Walpole vowed that a bridge would replace the ferry.Putney Bridge on Londonhistorians.org
/ref> The then

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rule ...

equally "was often inconvenienced by the ferry when returning from hunting in

Richmond Park Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is the largest of London's Royal Parks, and is of national and international importance for wildlife conservation. It was created by Charles I in the 17th century as a deer pa ...

and asked Walpole to use his influence by supporting the bridge." The legal framework for construction of a bridge was approved by an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation Primary legislation and secondary legislation (the latter also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation) are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislat ...

(the Fulham and Putney Bridge Act) in 1726. Built by local master carpenter Thomas Phillips to a design by Royal Navy Surveyor Sir Jacob Ackworth, the first bridge was opened on 29 November 1729. In its first guise, from 1729 to 1886 it was slightly down river to the north, and in many official records was also known as Fulham Bridge. It was the only bridge between London Bridge and Kingston Bridge at the time. It was a

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

with tollbooths at either end of the timber-built structure. In October 1795,

Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft (, ; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationsh ...

, philosopher and early women's equality advocate, allegedly planned to commit suicide by jumping from the bridge, because she had returned from a trip to Sweden to discover that her lover was involved with an actress from London. The bridge has been the starting point for The Boat Race since 1845 when the course was revised. The competitors are currently 32 men of the Universities of

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

with two crews of first and second eights. Women's eights competed in an equivalent race for the first time in 2015, having since 1927 competed a shorter varsity race in Henley also in the early spring. The bridge was badly damaged by the collision of a river barge in 1870. Although part of the bridge was subsequently replaced, the entire bridge was then demolished to make way for construction of the current bridge.

Current bridge

The

Metropolitan Board of Works The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Coun ...

purchased the bridge in 1879, discontinued the tolls in 1880, and set about its replacement. In 1886 construction of the stone bridge that stands today, on a new alignment, was completed. A new road – Putney Bridge Approach – was laid to connect the northern end of the new bridge with Fulham High Street at its junction with New King's Road; in consequence the southernmost stretch of Fulham High Street was reduced to a cul-de-sac. The bridge was designed by

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

Sir

Joseph Bazalgette Sir Joseph William Bazalgette CB (; 28 March 181915 March 1891) was a 19th-century English civil engineer. As chief engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation (in response to the Great Stink of ...

as a five-span structure, built of stone and Cornish granite. Bazalgette also designed London's sewerage system, and the bridge integrates two of his five outfall sewers running perpendicular to it. It was constructed by John Waddell of Edinburgh, whose tender of £240,433 () was accepted on 15 April 1882. It is and , and was opened by the

Prince A prince is a Monarch, male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary title, hereditary, in s ...

(later King

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

) and

Princess of Wales Princess of Wales (Welsh language, Welsh: ''Tywysoges Cymru'') is a Courtesy titles in the United Kingdom, courtesy title used since the 14th century by the wife of the heir apparent to the English and later Monarchy of the United Kingdom, Briti ...

on 29 May 1886. In 1933, the bridge was widened to its present three carriageways. Putney Bridge Approach was widened in consequence, further encroaching on the churchyard of All Saints Church, Fulham. The stone marking the downstream end of the Championship Course is used for all boat races through Putney in Olympic-class rowing boats. These include the Wingfield Sculls and the UK's main Head of the River Races, just west of the bridge, rather than at the bridge itself, under which the centre of its middle arch would provide an advantage if starting underneath it, as all races are competed with the tide. In 2007, the bridge suffered considerable damage by a developer who cut several holes into the Cornish granite of the southern approach of the bridge. On 14 July 2014, Putney Bridge closed for three months, except to pedestrians and dismounted cyclists, to undergo "essential repairs" by Wandsworth Council "to better protect the bridge from damage caused by water penetration, which has contributed to the poor road surface". The bridge reopened on 26 September that year. On 5 May 2017 an unidentified jogger on the bridge pushed over a woman, where an approaching bus narrowly avoided hitting her. Irish playwright Sonya Kelly wrote a play, ''Once Upon a Bridge'', inspired by the incident which was produced by Druid Theatre in 2021. Putney Bridge at Dusk, London, UK - Diliff

Putney Bridge at Dusk, London, UK - Diliff

References

External links