Official Heritage Listing Information and Findings
Listed At: Grade II
Discussion:
List Entry Number: 1393009
Reasons for
Designation
Chelsea Bridge is designated for the following principal
reasons:
* It dates from 1934-7 and was designed by London County
Council Engineers under the leadership of Sir T Peirson Frank.
*
The bridge is architecturally impressive: its slender suspension towers
create an elegant profile which echoes that of Albert Bridge upstream. *
The embellishment is similarly unpretentious, and the lampposts are of
particular note. * The bridge is of constructional interest as a self-stabilising
suspension bridge, an unusual type, which represented a major step
forward in British bridge practice building on the work of American and
Continental engineers. * Its extensive use of high tensile steel,
predating the first British standard, gives it added technological
importance. * Chelsea Bridge also has significant group value as a
component in an ensemble of C19 architecture including Albert Bridge of
1873 (listed Grade II*), Battersea Park of 1846 (registered Grade II*)
and Chelsea Hospital Garden of 1687, remodelled comprehensively in 1849,
(registered Grade II) to the north. * Replacing a suspension bridge of
1851, the new bridge did not deviate from the original form and it makes
an equally significant contribution to the Victorian character of the
immediate context.
Details
249/0/10080 Chelsea Bridge
26-NOV-08
GV II
Suspension bridge, 1934-37, by London
County Council Engineers under the leadership of Sir T Peirson Frank
with Rendel, Tritton and Palmer as consultants; the contractors were
Holloway Brothers and the consulting architect was George Topham Forrest
of the LCC.
DESCRIPTION: Chelsea Bridge is a suspension bridge
with a central span of 107.3m, side spans of 52.4m, giving a total
length of 212.7m, and is 25m wide. The foundations for the piers, built
in steel-sheet-piled cofferdams, were dug on the positions of the
earlier bridge, but were of completely new construction, being formed of
steel and concrete. The existing abutments were strengthened because of
the weakness of the ground, a circumstance that led the engineers to
design a self-anchoring type of suspension bridge. In this system the
tensile stress generated by the cables is resisted more by stiffening
girders than by abutment anchorages. The piers are clad in granite above
the water line. The bridge has mild steel transverse beams, but uses
high tensile steel in the wires of the suspension cables and in the
flanges of the stiffening girders - one of the earliest such
applications that predated the first British standard. The towers
supporting the hexagonal-section suspension cables carrying the six-lane
roadway are of steel box plate construction supported on rocker
bearings. The deck is of high tensile steel box girder construction, an
early use of the technique in the UK.
The bridge is painted
mostly white with a red trim and greyish blue along the balustrades. It
is embellished with five sets of lampposts, decorated with golden
galleons, on either side of the bridge and smaller bulbs fixed into the
swooping metal supports. There are heraldic designs on the four tall
turrets at either end of the bridge: a golden galleon with two shields
underneath (each marked with different symbols); crests of Middlesex and
other counties around London; and a series of doves holding olive
branches.
HISTORY: Chelsea Bridge took advantage of the latest
analytical techniques developed by American and Continental engineers
over the previous 40 years and represented a major step forward in
British bridge building practice. The bridge was opened on 6 May 1937 by
the Prime Minister of Canada, W L Mackenzie King, as the construction
work had used Douglas fir from British Columbia in Canada. As in several
public buildings of the 1930s the decision was made to use only
materials from the UK or Commonwealth Countries (another example is
Broadcasting House, the BBC's Headquarters in Langham Place, of 1931).
The first bridge on the site was authorised by an Act of
Parliament in 1846 and built in 1851-8 to complement the new Battersea
Park, laid out just before the bridge's construction. The suspension
bridge, by architect Thomas Page, was described at the time 'as the most
beautiful of the bridges that crossed the Thames'. Tolls were initially
payable but this led to public complaints that the 'government gave a
park to the people but placed a toll-bar at the gate to keep them out'.
The tolls were removed in 1879, when the Metropolitan Board of Works
acquired ownership of the structure. The bridge was never formally named
and was known as 'the Victoria' after its official opening in March 1858
by the Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales. The change of name to
Chelsea Bridge coincided with further strengthening in 1880, following
an earlier episode of strengthening works in 1863-4. By the 1920s its
replacement was being seriously considered, but the financial crises of
the period delayed action until 1935, when the bridge was demolished
following the Royal Commission on Cross River Traffic recommendations of
1926.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: * Chelsea Bridge is
architecturally impressive: its slender suspension towers create an
elegant profile which echoes that of Albert Bridge upstream; the
embellishment is similarly unpretentious, and the lampposts are of
particular note. * The bridge is of constructional interest as a self-stabilising
suspension bridge, an unusual type, which represented a major step
forward in British bridge practice building on the work of American and
Continental engineers. * Its extensive use of high tensile steel,
predating the first British standard, gives it added technological
importance. * Chelsea Bridge also has significant group value as a
component in an ensemble of C19 architecture including Albert Bridge of
1873 (listed Grade II*), Battersea Park of 1846 (registered Grade II*)
and Chelsea Hospital Garden of 1687, remodelled comprehensively in 1849,
(registered Grade II) to the north. * Replacing a suspension bridge of
1851, the new bridge did not deviate from the original form and it makes
an equally significant contribution to the Victorian character of the
immediate context.
SOURCES: G Phillips, 'Thames Crossings'
(1981), 194-7. A A Jakula, 'History of Suspension Bridges' (1941),
167-9. 'Engineering News Record' (25 February 1937), 315. E J Buckler
and H J Fereday, 'The Reconstruction of Chelsea Bridge' in 'Inst of
Civil Engineers Proceedings' (1937-8), 381-446. 'Engineer', CLXII
(1936), 136-41 and CLXIII (1937), 541-4.
The asset was previously
listed twice also under the London Borough of Wandsworth at List entry
1393010. This entry was removed from the List on 23 March 2018.
|
