2-995-742 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The demolition of Old Westminster-Bridge, [London], 1860. '...the ancient bridge stood for more than six hundred years before the foundation of its youthful and more symmetrical neighbour was laid at Westminster by the Earl of Pembroke on the 29th of January, 1838...Labelye, the architect, who was a Swiss naturalised in England, exerted the utmost skill and care in all respects to make his work, which was then considered as one of the wonders of Europe, as complete as possible, the materials were the best that could be procured...Blocks of solid stone were used, many of them weighing as much as four or five tons...The soffit of every arch...is turned and built quite through, the same as the fronts, with large Portland blocks, over which is built, bounded in by the Portland, another arch of Purbeck stone, four or five times thicker in the reins than over the key, so calculated that by the help of this secondary arch, together with the incumbered load of materials, all the parts of every arch are in equilibrio...£389,500 was the whole cost of the structure'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.