Its most important responsibilities were sewers, streets and bridges, the fire service, and parks and open spaces. Between and that involved creating the Victoria Embankment, Albert Embankment, and Chelsea Embankment, as well as pumping stations at Abbey Mills and Crossness. Most of the bridges that had been built across the river in the 18 th and 19 th centuries were by private companies who charged tolls.
The tolls on the private bridges were highly unpopular, and many people went out of their way to avoid them, causing congestion on the three toll-free bridges. Between and eleven bridges were thus made public and the tolls abolished.
A number of the bridges were then rebuilt or refurbished by the MBW. The MBW was funded from rates payable by Londoners and the inhabitants of East London had therefore helped fund the purchase of the bridges of the City and West London. They were then agitating for their own crossings and Bazalgette studied the issue.
There was a plan for a high-level bridge near the Tower of London and a tunnel three quarters of a mile downriver of London Bridge. Neither scheme initially progressed, although the former idea was taken up by the City of London, resulting in Tower Bridge , which opened in The MBW, however, were authorized to proceed with a toll-free ferry across the river between Woolwich and North Woolwich.
The northern approach takes traffic from the A12 and the southern approach takes traffic from the A2, making the tunnel crossing a key link for both local and longer-distance traffic between the north and south sides of the river.
It forms part of a key route into Central London from South East London and Kent and was the easternmost all-day crossing for vehicles before the opening of the Dartford Tunnel in It remains the easternmost free fixed road crossing of the Thames, and regularly suffers congestion, to the extent that tidal flow schemes were in place from until controversially removed in Given the very high traffic volumes at the crossing and the height restrictions of the Victorian bore the crossing is being supplemented by the Silvertown Tunnel, currently under construction.
When the Silvertown Tunnel is completed in , both it and the Blackwall Tunnels will be tolled. The tunnels are no longer open to pedestrians, cyclists or other non-motorised traffic, and the northbound tunnel has a height limit. The London Buses route between Lewisham and Stratford runs through the tunnels. A tunnel in the Blackwall area was originally proposed in the s.
According to Robert Webster, then MP for St Pancras East, a tunnel would "be very useful to the East End of London, a district representing in trade and commerce a population greater than the combined populations of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham.
The Thames Tunnel Blackwall Act was created in August , which provided the legal framework necessary to construct the tunnel. It was originally commissioned by the Metropolitan Board of Works but, just before the contract was due to start, responsibility passed to the London County Council LCC when the former body was abolished in and Bazalgette's work on the tunnel ended. The original tunnel as built was designed by Sir Alexander Binnie and built by S. It was lit by three rows of incandescent street lights.
To clear the site in Greenwich, more than people had to be rehoused, The work force was largely drawn from immigrants; the tunnel lining was manufactured in Glasgow, while the manual labour came from provincial England, particularly Yorkshire.
The tunnel was officially opened by the Prince of Wales on 22 May The southern entrance gateway to the tunnel, also known as Southern Tunnel House, was designed by LCC architect Thomas Blashill and was built just before the tunnel was completed. It comprises two floors with an attic. Today the western bore is only used for northbound traffic and is not accessible to vehicles taller than.
The tunnel carries two lanes of traffic, though higher vehicles need to keep to the left-hand lane so that they do not hit the tunnel's inner lining.
Due to the increase in motor traffic in the early 20th century, the capacity of the original tunnel was soon perceived as inadequate. Last 20 Searches Constructing the Blackwall Tunnel, London, 9 March Photograph from the Pearson Archive, showing a man in a diving suit with winch gear.
When the tunnel opened fully in it was the longest underwater tunnel in the world, at feet. Most of the vehicles using the tunnel during the first weeks were dock and railway vans, and the new crossing became popular with local workers on both sides of the river.
Surprisingly few of the people connected with the Blackwall Tunnel were Londoners. Although the LCC asked Pearsons to employ local workmen, fn. The iron tunnel lining was made in Glasgow by the British Hydraulic Foundry Company, the bricks and tiles came from provincial firms, the granite sets were from Aberdeen, and the asphalt roadway was laid by teams of Italian workmen employed by the French Val de Travers company.
Moir representing the contractors. Blackwall Tunnel, plans and section of the north entrance gatehouse. Binnie's original plans included designs for a pair of simple Classical arches to mark the entrances to the open approach roads and indicate the maximum headroom in the tunnel.
These were superseded by more ambitious designs by Thomas Blashill, the LCC Architect, for two entrance gatehouses to accommodate the superintendent and caretaker of the tunnel Plates b, b. The north gatehouse was erected in —7. Basically rectangular in plan, with octagonal turrets at each corner, it spanned the open approach road, with two bedrooms, a living-room, scullery, larder and w.
A third bedroom and a cistern room occupied part of the roof space above. The houses were built of light-brown sandstone with contrasting bands of red sandstone. The gatehouses provided unusual Art Nouveau silhouettes amid the working-class housing of Poplar and the empty expanses and gas-storage tanks of Greenwich Marshes, and the proximity of the East India Dock Gateway on the north side no doubt inspired Blashill to compete with it in architectural terms.
In public toilets were provided by the LCC in a small building adjoining the north entrance gatehouse, in a suitably sympathetic style. In the north entrance house and the toilets were demolished during work on the approaches for the new Blackwall Tunnel. The south gatehouse at Greenwich still stands. The entrance facades to the cut-and-cover portions of the tunnel had fronts of polished red granite, with two flights of stone steps leading up to the roadway to provide easy access for local foot passengers.
The design was kept simple, the only surface decoration being fleur-de-lis finials on the piers and an inscription along the top of the parapet marking the completion of the runnel. Ornamental electric lamps were provided on the staircases. Most of the parapet on the north side still remains today, although the stone steps and attached walls and piers were demolished.
Since no public supply of electricity was available to light the tunnel and its buildings, fn.
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