How were the foundations of The Tower Bridge built?
In 1878 Horace Jones, the City architect, put forward a proposal for a low-level bridge on the bascule principle – that is, a bridge on a level with the streets with two leaves or arms that could be raised to let ships pass up and down the river and lowered to let vehicles pass to and from across the waterway. Successful bridges of this type already existed, though on a much smaller scale, at Rotterdam and Copenhagen. “Bascule” is derived from the French word for see-saw,” and the bascule bridge is a kind of drawbridge which works on a pivot and has a heavy weight at one end to balance the greater length at the other. This was the type of bridge finally decided upon, and it has proved a great success. The piers of the Tower Bridge are much more complicated structures than the piers of an ordinary bridge. In addition to supporting the towers carrying the overhead girders for the high-level footways and the suspension chains of the fixed spans, they also house the counterpoise and the ma
