FREEDOM OF WATERLOO AND CHARING CROSS BRIDGES.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3088, 10 January 1879, Page 1

FREEDOM OF WATERLOO AND CHARING CROSS BRIDGES.

The Metropolitan Board of Works hare S r lW" four yea" been treating with the Waterloo Bridge Company-for the freedom of their bridge, and it, as well as the footbridge at Charing Cross have now

been made a free thoroughfare. The opening ceremony was a simple one. The members of the Board, with Mr Dresser Hogers as substitute for Sir James Hogg, Cbairo>an of the Board, drove to the bridge, where Mr Rogers made a short speech, in which, exhibiting its key to the assembled crowd, he declared the bridge free and open to the public forever. He and bis colleagues then drove across the bridge, where a salute was fired. They t> turned by the Strand to Charing Cross Bridge, which was pronounced free in the same manner. A collection was made for the Infirmary for Women and Children by means of bozea placed ou either aide of the bridge, and the passers by being asked to put in what otherwise they would have paid for toll. Several ladies acted as collector*, and £15 was taken iti this way and given to the hospital. The freedom of Waterloo Bridge will be of immense value to the inhabitants of London, there being no other open thoroughfare between Westminster and Blackfmrs. Some months ago great excitement was caused by the report that Waterloo Bridge was unsafe. It was found that the foundations round the third and fifih piers were partly washed away. Coffer dams are to be built round then:, the spaces between filled with concrete, and this will mnke the bridge as strong as when first built. This bridge has always been immensely admired by foreigners. Alexander 1., of Russia, said it was the finest piece of masonry in the world.' The good effects of its freedom have been quickly shown in a variety of ways. The number of cabs and pedestrians passing over after the arrival of each train at the Waterloo Station far surpass ' any ever seen before. To the work-people the boon is great as a-large proportion of them, to avoid the penny toll, hare preferred to go round by Black' friars and Westminster morning after morning. The South-Western Railway come in for a large share of benefit, as they have six omnibusses which pass the bridge daily, and whose tolls reach the sum of £1400 yearly.