Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Golden Jubilee Bridges: Walk This Way
Golden Jubilee Bridges: Walk This Way
Golden Jubilee
Bridges
The construction of the Golden Jubilee Bridges has
Key
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Transport
General travel information can be obtained on Transport for
Londons 24-hour number: 020 7222 1234, www.tfl.gov.uk
Soho Square
Greek Street
Gerrard Street
The Empire
Leicester Square Gardens
Odeon Theatre
National Gallery
St Martin-in-the -Fields
Nelsons Column
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Hayward Gallery
Oxo Tower Wharf
National Theatre
National Film Theatre
Waterloo Bridge
Royal Festival Hall
Embankment Gardens
Cleopatras Needle
The Savoy
The Lyceum Theatre
Bow Magistrates Court
Royal Opera House
Covent Garden Piazza
St. Pauls Church
Underground Stations
Tottenham Court Road Northern & Central
Leicester Square Northern & Piccadilly
Charing Cross Northern & Bakerloo
Embankment Northern, Bakerloo, District and Circle
Waterloo Northern, Bakerloo, Waterloo & City and Jubilee*
Westminster District, Circle & Jubilee*
Southwark Jubilee*
Temple District & Circle
Covent Garden Piccadilly
Holborn Piccadilly & Central
* these station exits are wheelchair accessible. Covent Garden station
suffers from severe congestion and is exit-only from 13.00 to 17.00 on
Saturdays. Commuters are advised to use alternative stations.
Route Accessibility
A lift service is available on both sides of the foot-bridges
on South Bank and on the downstream side of the footbridge on the
north bank (see map). There is a steep gradient up Savoy Street between
points 27 and 28. An alternate route is to continue along the downstream footbridge, through Charing Cross station and east along the
Strand, re-joining the route at point 28.
Accessibility Information
Transport for London
National Gallery
London Eye
Hayward Gallery
Oxo Tower Wharf
Royal National Theatre
Royal Festival Hall
Royal Opera House
Map reproduced from Ordnance Survey Landplan 1:5000 mapping with permission of the Controller of Her
Majestys Stationery Office Crown copyright; Licence Number 398179
Soho Square
1
Gregory King
1681
2
Various
from C17th
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Nicholas Barbon
16771685
Soho Square
Initially named King Square after its
creator, Soho Square was built for titled
gentry made homeless by the Great Fire.
It contains a monument to Charles II and
a half-timbered Summer House (added
in 187576). Once used to house an
electrical transformer, it is now a parkkeepers hut. A French Protestant Church
and St Patricks Catholic Church (both
completed in 1893) are present in the
Square, evidence of the international
refugees that sought out Soho.
Greek Street
Greek migrants first came to Soho after
the Ottoman invasions of the seventeenth
century and Greek Street still retains
buildings that date back to past ages: the
House of St Barnabus for Destitute
Women, built in 1746, and the Maison
Bertaux patisserie, the oldest in London
and structurally unchanged since 1871.
Gerrard Street
Acquired by Baron Gerard of Brandon at
sword-point, Gerrard Street was developed
for aristocratic residents. As areas further
west grew fashionable, it became home to
the immigrant communities who could
afford its low rents: French, Italian, Jewish
and, in the post-war period, thousands of
agricultural workers from Hong Kong. The
significance of the Chinese community
was recognised by Westminster Council in
1985 when the street, now identified as
Chinatown, was pedestrianised and
renovated with Chinese style decoration.
Leicester Square
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Thomas Verity,
J. & A.E. Bull 1884
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James Knowles
1874
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Andrew Mather and
Harry Weedon
1937
The Empire
The Empire Theatre of Varieties was a big
success with Victorian London and had
shown moving pictures since the 1896
Lumire brothers projections. Bought by
MGM to be a flagship cinema in 1925,
the theatre was given a lavishly-decorated
3,000-seat auditorium, drawing two
million visitors annually. Reconstructed in
1962, the stalls became a Mecca Dance
Hall (The Equinox from 1992) while the
main cinema has a redesigned art-deco
auditorium. The 1928 frontage was
restored in the 1980s.
Leicester Square Gardens
When developing his Square, the
Earl of Leicester was obliged to provide a
tree-planted public area, to compensate
the parishioners, who had traditional
rights to dry clothes and graze cattle on
the fields. In serious disrepair by 1874, the
gardens were restored by James Knowles
after being purchased for the public by
notorious fraudster Albert Grant MP, with
a marble fountain and central monument
to Shakespeare.
Odeon Theatre
Over a hundred Oscar Deutsch Entertains
Our Nation cinemas were built in the
1930s. The most ambitious project was
the Leicester Square cinema: a
monumental building with a dramatic
black tower and art-deco lettering, four
times the cost of other major Odeons.
Deutsch's death in 1941 marked the end
of his cinema building, though many of
the original constructions survive today, as
cinemas, bingo halls or even churches.
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Trafalgar Square
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William Wilkins
18321838
National Gallery
Founded with just thirty-eight pictures in
1824, a permanent home for the National
Gallery was commissioned seven years
later. Forming the north side of Trafalgar
Square, the grand building is divided into
thirteen sections, six on each side of the
central portico and its skyline is broken up
by pepper castors (small domed turrets).
In 186776, E.M. Barry re-modelled the
interiors and added a new east wing. The
National Gallery now has forty-six rooms
covering the development of European
painting from the mid-thirteenth century
to the French Impressionists. The most
recent addition was the Sainsbury Wing,
completed in 1991 on the site of a
bombed-out furniture store.
St Martin-in-the-Fields
James Gibbs
172126
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William Railton
1842
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Herbert Baker
1935
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Hubert Le Sueur
1638
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Nelsons Column
The centrepiece of the Square is the
worlds tallest Corinthian column: 170ft
of Devonshire granite, capped by the
statue of Lord Horatio Viscount Nelson,
Britains most beloved naval hero and
commander at the battle of Trafalgar. The
lions at the Columns base were added by
Sir Edwin Landseer and the reliefs by WFW
Woodington were finished in 1867.
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Edward Middleton Barry
1863
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Various
1876
Charing Cross
Known also as the Eleanor Cross, it is the
last of twelve crosses placed by King
Edward I in 1290 to mark each of the
resting places of Queen Eleanors funeral
cortege as it journeyed from Lincolnshire
to Westminster Abbey. The cross was soon
replaced by a monument of Caen Stone,
which was pulled down in 1647. When
Charing Cross Station was being built in
1863, a replica by E.M. Barry was set up
outside the Station, with eight crowned
statues of Queen Eleanor on the sides and
eight kneeling angels below.
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South Bank
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Marks Barfield
2000
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Ralph Knott, E C Collins
19111933
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Howard Robertson,
R Maynard Smith
19531963
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London Eye
The perfect symmetry of a circle which
from a distance seems to be transparent,
embodies the passages of time.
An integration of architecture, engineering
and design, the sections of this 2,100 ton
construction were transported down the
Thames and raised a massive 135 metres
high. From that height, passengers in the
thirty-two glass observation pods can view
up to 25 miles across London.
County Hall
The former home of the London County
Council is a six-storey, symmetrical
construction, faced with Portland Stone in
the Edwardian Baroque style. The twentyfive year construction outlasted its
architect, who died in 1929, with the
North, South and Island Blocks added
thereafter (the last in 1974). The capitals
government, known from 1965 as the
Greater London Council, was abolished
in 1986 and the Hall now houses Dali
Universe, the London Aquarium and
two hotels.
Shell Building
To encourage big business to settle in
South Bank, building restrictions were lifted
in the 1950s, prompting the construction
of Shells twenty-six storey tower. 338 feet
of steel frames and reinforced concrete
faced with Portland Stone, it was Londons
highest building at the time of opening,
the tower is still used as Shell offices,
while the other half of the Shell Centre, a
shorter building located downstream, has
become a housing complex.
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Brian Avery & Associates
1999
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J W Jacomb-Hood,
A W Szlumper 190122
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Hubert Bennet,
Jack Whittle
19631968
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Oxo Tower: A W Moore;
1928
Oxo Tower Wharf:
Liftschutz Davidson
1995
Waterloo Station
The original terminus of 1848 was a
confused collection of eighteen platforms,
ten platform numbers and four stations,
entirely beyond commuter comprehension.
In 1900, work began on a new red-brick
and Portland Stone station with twentyone platforms, a grand booking hall and
the Victory Arch entrance (named after
World War I, with sculptures and
memorials around a massive fanlight).
Receiving fifty bomb hits during the Blitz,
the Station remained operational
nonetheless. In 1992, the glass walls of
the Eurostar International Terminal were
added.
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Denys Lasdun
1976
Hayward Gallery
Named after London County Council
leader Isaac Hayward, the gallery was
considered a classic example of 1960s
brutalist architecture: reinforced concrete
following strong horizontal lines with little
skylight pyramids on top. Crowning the
gallery is the neon tower, originally an
exhibit, this kinetic sculpture changes
colour in response to the direction, speed
and strength of the wind.
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Leslie Martin,
Hubert Bennett
19561958
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Giles Gilbert Scott;
Rendel,
19371945
National Theatre
In 1976, after a century of planning and
fourteen years in the Old Vic, the Royal
National Theatre opened: a Modernist
design of reinforced concrete and
horizontal lines augmented by the massive
fly-towers of the theatres. In 1997 work
began to develop and renovate the
National Theatre, complementing Lasduns
design. The main entrance, box office,
bookshop and foyer performance areas
were completely rebuilt and a new exterior
performance space, Theatre Square,
was added.
National Film Theatre
The popularity of the Festival of Britains
Tlekinema led to the NFT opening in
1957, built beneath Waterloo Bridges
southern arches. With a second cinema
added in 1970, the NFT is now one of the
world's leading cinematheques, and hosts
the annual London Film Festival.
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Robert Matthew,
Leslie Martin
19481951
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Waterloo Bridge
Intended as the Strand Bridge, this granite
construction was bought by the
government, re-named after Wellingtons
recent victory and opened in 1817.
Underused and neglected, by 1923 the
bridge was deemed beyond repair and
closed permanently. Work for a
replacement began in 1939 but was
delayed almost immediately by the
outbreak of World War II, though
construction still continued despite being
hit by labour shortage and V2 rockets.
With few men available for building work,
most of the work was done with female
labour and The Ladies Bridge was opened
in 1945.
Royal Festival Hall
Built on the site of the Red Lion Brewery,
the Royal Festival Hall is the only
permanent legacy of the 1951 Festival Of
Britain. Designed in a Modernist style
with glazed screens and a green roof of
weather-exposed copper, it is the first postwar building to receive a Grade 1 listing.
Inside, the auditorium high on the upper
levels is insulated from the sound of the
nearby railway while beneath are placed
galleries, restaurants, shops, cafs and
performance areas. A 1965 redevelopment
defines much of the current outward
appearance: the Portland Stone exterior
was re-cased, the river frontage was
pushed thirty yards forward, and a new
riverside entrance was created. In 2001 a
programme was commenced to renovate
and upgrade the facilities, qualities and
capabilities of the Concert Hall as well as
restoring much of the original features of
the Peoples Place.
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Victoria Embankment
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Alexander McKenzie
18641870
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Built for Pharaoh
Thothmes III
1467 BC
Embankment Gardens
With topsoil taken from Barking Creek,
these twenty acres of quiet greenery
contain memorials and statues of famous
Britons including Robert Burns, Arthur
Sullivan, John Stuart Mill and the Imperial
Camel Corps. At the west end of the
Gardens is the York Water Gate. Built in
1626 by Balthasar Gerbier, it features
columns, lions and a pediment on the
south side with simpler Tuscan pilasters
on the north. Once part of the Duke of
Buckinghams riverside mansion
(demolished in 1676), it gave direct access
to the river from the Dukes gardens and
now acts an entrance to Embankment
Gardens.
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T.E. Collcutt
18841889
Cleopatra's Needle
Sixty feet high, this 180 ton granite
obelisk stood for a thousand years in
Alexandria, royal city of Queen Cleopatra.
The monolith was given to Britain in 1819,
though it was 1877 before anyone
attempted to transport it. Encased in an
iron cylinder and towed from the
Mediterranean, the obelisk was nearly
lost in a storm off the Bay of Biscay, in
which six men lost their lives to ensure
it eventually reached British shores
safely in January 1878. The Needle was
installed on the Victoria Embankment the
same year with time capsule items,
historical plaques and two sphinxes by
George Vulliamy.
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1772
Rebuilt: Samuel Beazley
1834
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The Savoy
The Savoy Palace was built in 1246 by
Count Peter of Savoy and became the
residence of Earls of Lancaster until 1381
when it was destroyed by the Peasants
Revolt. In 1881 the site was developed by
Richard DOyly Carte, theatrical impresario
of the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas (also
known as the Savoy Operas). Carte built
the Savoy Theatre and then a hotel
designed to rival the best in the world,
featuring full electrical lighting and a
multitude of bathrooms. Facing the river
are nine storeys of artificial stone and
horizontal windows while the forecourt is
the only street in Britain where traffic
drives on the right, a measure introduced
so passengers in horse-drawn hansom cabs
would avoid stepping off into puddles.
The Lyceum Theatre
The original Lyceum was a concert and
exhibition venue (Madame Tussauds
waxworks debuted here in 1802) before
hosting the Drury Lane theatre company
in 1809. When the Lyceum was burnt
down in 1830, it was rebuilt facing
Wellington Street (where the portico
remains today) and enjoyed great success
under the management of the actor
Henry Irving. The theatre was bought by
the London County Council in 1939, which
intended to demolish the building for a
road improvement. The outbreak of war
spared the Lyceum and in 1951, it was
converted, first into a Mecca Ballroom
then a nightclub. This too closed in the
1980s and the building lay empty until it
was extensively restored and converted in
1996 to be re-opened as a theatre.
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Covent Garden
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John Taylor
18791881
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Inigo Jones
16331637
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Robert Smirke
18081809
Rebuilt:
E.M Barry 18571858
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Inigo Jones
16311638
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Acknowledgements
The Walk This Way series has been researched and
published by South Bank Employers Group, a partnership
of the major organisations in South Bank, Waterloo and
Blackfriars with a commitment to improving the experience
of the area for visitors, employees and residents.
This guide has been made possible thanks to funding
from the Waterloo Project Board and Cross River
Partnership, which are supported by the London
Development Agency, Transport for London, Westminster
and Lambeth Councils
For further information about Walk This Way or the
South Bank, please see www.southbanklondon.com
South Bank Employers Group
103 Waterloo Road
SE1 8UL
T: 020 7202 6900
E: mail@southbanklondon.com
Photography: Peter Durant/ arcblue.com
Graphic design: Mannion Design
Map design: ML Design
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