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Location: A202, London, United Kingdom.
Vauxhall Bridge:
Vauxhall Bridge is a Grade II* listed steel and granite deck arch bridge in central London. It crosses the River Thames in a south–east north–west direction between Vauxhall on the south bank and Pimlico on the north bank. Opened in 1906, it replaced an earlier bridge, originally known as Regent Bridge but later renamed Vauxhall Bridge, built between 1809 and 1816 as part of a scheme for redeveloping the south bank of the Thames. The original bridge was itself built on the site of a former ferry.
The building of both bridges was problematic, with both the first and second bridges requiring several redesigns from multiple architects. The original bridge, the first iron bridge over the Thames, was built by a private company and operated as a toll bridge before being taken into public ownership in 1879. The second bridge, which took eight years to build, was the first in London to carry trams and later one of the first two roads in London to have a bus lane.
In 1963 it was proposed to replace the bridge with a modern development containing seven floors of shops, office space, hotel rooms and leisure facilities supported above the river, but the plans were abandoned because of costs. With the exception of alterations to the road layout and the balustrade, the design and appearance of the current bridge has remained almost unchanged since 1907. The bridge today is an important part of London's road system and carries the A202 road across the Thames.
History of Vauxhall Bridge:
In 1993, the earliest known bridge-like structure in London was discovered alongside Vauxhall Bridge, when shifting currents washed away a layer of silt which had covered it. Dating to between 1550 BC and 300 BC, it consists of two rows of wooden posts, which it is believed would originally have carried a deck of some kind. It is believed that it did not cross the whole river, but instead ran to an island in the river, possibly used for burial of the dead. As no mention of this or similar structures in the area is made in Julius Caesar's account of crossing the Thames nor by any other Roman author, it is presumed that the structure had been dismantled or destroyed prior to Caesar's expedition to Britain in 55 BC. The posts are still visible at extreme low tides.
Following the closure of a number of the area's industries, in the 1970s and 1980s the land at the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge remained empty, following the failures of multiple redevelopment schemes. The most notable came in 1979 when Keith Wickenden MP, owner of the land at the immediate southern end of the bridge, proposed a large-scale redevelopment of the site. The development was to contain 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2) of office space, 100 luxury flats and a gallery to house the Tate Gallery's modern art collection. The offices were to be housed in a 500-foot (150 m) tower of green glass, which was nicknamed the "Green Giant" and met with much opposition.[29] The then Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, refused permission for the development and the site remained empty.
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