The London Bridge was created because many people were inconvenienced by not having easy access over the Thames River (The river the bridge now crosses.) Previous bridges were made across the river, but they were made out of wood, which eventually caught fire and burned down. The construction of the London Bridge took six years to complete. ” It was designed by John Rennie, a Scottish Engineer, begun in 1825 under the superintendence of his sons, Sir John and George Rennie, and completed in 1831″ (London Bridge). The cost to make the entire bridge was £2,000,000 which is equivalent to $3,043,300. If you take in consideration that this bridge was built in the 1800’s, you’ll come to the realization that this bridge was highly expensive to construct. The bridge 928 feet long and 54 feet broad and is help up by five granite arches. These granite arches have a span of one hundred and fifty-two feet. An interesting fact is that the lamp posts on the bridge are made of iron from French Canons which were captured in the Peninsular War. More recently, the expanded the bridge in width and it is now 65 feet wide. It is calculated that about 22,000 vehicles and about 110,000 pedestrians cross the bridge every single week. This shows the importance of this bridge to the many people who live in London.

In the Sherlock Holmes story, The Man with the Twisted Lip, the London Bridge was mentioned when John Watson was describing how to get the opium den. “Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge. Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search” (Doyle). For some reason, in the context of the story, it seems to make the bridge mysterious and almost creepy. I think it seems like that because it’s so close to the opium den and the author also used words like “lurking” to describe the alley near the London Bridge. Besides that description, I don’t see any other mention of the London Bridge in this Holmes story.

Citations:

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Man with the Twisted Lip. London: Penguin, 1995. Print.

“London Bridge.” London Bridge. George Landow, 10 Oct. 2001. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.