Albert Bridge, the Trembling Lady
Why is it significant?
Walk out a little way onto the bridge and look at it from the inside: a cat's cradle of slender rods and chains painted pink, pale blue and green, with two little wooden toll booths standing at the entrance like sentry boxes.
Key Facts
| Place | Albert Bridge, the Trembling Lady |
|---|---|
| Address | Albert Bridge, Chelsea Embankment, London SW3 5SY, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.48260, -0.16670 |
| Part of Walk | Pensioners, Poets and Punks: Chelsea's Riverside History from the Royal Hospital to the King's Road, London |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk out a little way onto the bridge and look at it from the inside: a cat's cradle of slender rods and chains painted pink, pale blue and green, with two little wooden toll booths standing at the entrance like sentry boxes. Albert Bridge is the most delicate crossing on the whole of the Thames, and it has always been a bit of a nervous wreck.
It was designed by Rowland Mason Ordish and opened in 1873, named after Queen Victoria's late husband, Prince Albert. Ordish used his own clever system of straight iron stays radiating from the towers, half suspension bridge, half cantilever. It was elegant... and it wobbled.
Look for the old notices at each end. They order troops to stop marching in step when they cross the bridge. Soldiers from the nearby Chelsea Barracks marching in rhythm could set the whole thing swaying, and it soon earned the nickname the Trembling Lady. The orders are still there, although the barracks have long gone.
Commercially it was a flop. Tolls were collected for only a few years, until 1879, when the Metropolitan Board of Works bought London's bridges and set them free. Those booths are the only bridge toll booths in London that survive. In the 1880s Joseph Bazalgette, the engineer of the sewers, had to strengthen it with suspension chains, and in 1973 two concrete piers were added in the middle, turning the centre into a plain beam bridge. Engineers wanted to demolish it altogether in the 1950s, but a campaign led by the poet John Betjeman saved it.
Come back at dusk if you can. The bridge is outlined by around four thousand light bulbs, and the bright paint was chosen so that ships could see it in fog and avoid crashing into it. From here, walk back off the bridge and turn right into Cheyne Row, the little street running inland just beyond the gardens.