BRIDGES AS PRESENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 187, 11 September 1909, Page 3

BRIDGES AS PRESENTS.

WHAT IT COSTS TO CROSS A RIVER. London is probably to ' have a now a>rid"i! before long, and the cost to the ratepayers will be -ail. A gift rcprc- • liiuug an expenditure of well over a| nr.liou ami a-'half is something worth iookiug into (says a Home journal). ihc Jjvidge House Estates Committee ui the Corporation of London possesses valunUe estates, which bring in an annual income of close on £150,000. and its special care is to see that sufficient bridge accommodation is provided "or the iraliic between the north and south bank* of the Thames—at any rate, between the Tower and Southwark bridges. Neither for constructioa nor for maintenance has Tower, London, Blackfriars, or Southwark bridge cost a penny to t'he ratepayers. WOODEN OLD ENGLAND.

Until about the middle of the eigh tccuth century London Bridge was t:ie| only One crossing the Thames in London, mid it was for its administration thm the. Bridge House Trust was foundtw. Apparently, the origin of the trust dales back' to the old wooden "bridges which preceded the 6tone bridge, known us -Old London Bridge." commenced "i 1176. ' . ■ jQnbng the manv sources from which the';fui»ds originally came were donatioiisifrom various public-spirited lad ; o> andjgentlemen at various times, a tax imposed by William Rufus,- a tax on •wooi'imposed by Henry ll—which gave rise to the tradition that London Bridge rested oa woolpacke—and tolls sanctioned by Edward I. "Old London Bridge" took about thirty-three years to build. In 1358 tho rents* from the houses on it amounted to £l6O 4s, which was considered a goodly sum in those days. One old London Bridge was pulled down by Olaf of Norway by the simpleprocess of attaching his vessels to the piles and pulling the whole structure over, a later bridge was swept away uy a flood, and the next was almost completely destroyed by fire. FOR_ "SAFETY."

"Old London Bridge" was badly dam aged by fire at each end shortly after its. completion, and about three thousand people, 'who ran on to the bridge for safety, were either drowned or burned to death. _ The .present London Bridge, which was openefl by William IV. and Queen Adelaide walking over it on Ist August, 1831, took about sewn and a-half yea's to build, and the total cost of the undertaking, including the removnl of the *d bridge, the construction of the approa'ehes, and the improvements carried out at each side of the bridge,^reached the enormous figure of £2,556,170. Of this sum, £820,318 2s o'/jd came out of the Bridge House Estates; the Government, with Parliament's sanction, contributed £192,000; and £1,000.000 was raised upon the credit of the coal and wine dues. Out of the total cost of the undertaking, the amount actually expended on building the bridge, including land, arches, abutments, and paving, was £680,232 12s lOd; the cost of the approaches and improvements un both sides of the bridge was £1340,433; while the removal of the Old London Bridge, with necessary alterations duiing the, progress oi the works at the new bridjge, accounted for £35,500. Forty lives were lost. It is not unusual for the bridge itself to be the smallest jtem in the bill in such undertakings, as above described; and it is worthy of note that ra the estimate of £1,646.983 as the "probabie cost' of the new "St. Paul's Bridg-,' £503,360 is allowed for the works, while £1,023,625 is allowed for the-purchase of the land necessary.

In recent years some very big expen-] ditures have been undertaken by the | Bridge House Estates Committee. They j include the widening of London Bridge at a cost of about fIOO.OOO-over ,£7oo] to the inch—and the widening of Blnct frTars Bridge at a cost of £120,000. Naturally, a great deal of money has to be paid Out each year for repairs, and some idea of this may be given d.v referring to the cost of repaintng Tower Bridge about a couple of jeais ago. One hundred men were engaged en the work night and day, and to give three coats of paint to every inch of the ironwork required about sixty tons of paint. Miles of scaffolding were erected to make the work safe; but. at the same time, the men employed were covered by special insurance.' Besides the illumination given by carbide lamps of 2500 candle-power, about five hundredweight of candles were used nightly by the workmen. A WORLD'S RECORD.

Gilding the large crestings of the bridge and the City arms and shie'ds on the footwavs, cost £4OO, while the total cost was'about £6OOO. The interval allowed between each painting of the bridge is six pears, so that for th> work alone the expenditure on Bridge is £IOOO a year. One of the finest works ever undertaken by the Bridge House Estates Committee was undoubtedly the building of the Tower Bridge. Its opening span is the largest in the world. The cost of the undertaking was £1,184,000.