While here in the Quartzsite area Man and I, along with MOC friends Coleen and Ray and Mina and Bob decided to take a day trip to Lake Havasu City Arizona to see "the London Bridge". I had heard comments about how "small" it was but, when I got there, I didn't really feel it was that small. I mean, there were 3 lanes of traffic on the bridge, and it seemed sorta long when we drove over it.
So, of course, when I got ready to chat about the bridge and share my photos, I just had to do some research first. (Facts gathered from Wikipedia.)
The London Bridge that now "resides" in Lake Havasu City, was designed by engineer John Rennie. The bridge was built by Rennie's son (of the same name). Work began in 1824 and the foundation stone was laid, in the southern cofferdam, on 15 June 1825.
Rennie's bridge had a length of 928 feet and a width of 49 feet. The graphic below is a stereopticon card photo from early 1890s, uploaded by Isis at en.wikipedia, found at Wikipedia.
Now, the Lake Havasu City London Bridge facts, from Wikipedia: After it was purchased by Robert P. McCulloch "the bridge facing stones were carefully disassembled and each piece was numbered. After the bridge was dismantled it was transported to Merrivale Quarry where 15 to 20 cm was sliced off many of the original stones. These were shipped to the bridge's present location and re-assembly began in 1968. The original stone was used to clad a concrete structure. The reconstruction took slightly over three years and was completed in late 1971." Lake Havasu City's bridge is 930 feet, long. It is 3 American traffic lanes wide.
A traffic lane in the USA is 11 to 12 foot wide, on the average, the bridge is 3 lanes wide, so it is approximately 36 feet of driving lanes. Plus there are sidewalks on both sides of the bridge. I have searched a lot of web pages and cannot seem to find the total current width of the Lake Havasu City London Bridge.
Comparing numbers, the bridge was 928 feet long in London, and is 2 feet longer in Lake Havasu City. The bride was 49 feet wide in London and appears to be about the same width, maybe even a little less wide.
Considering when the bridge was built, in the early to mid 1800's, I don't think the London Bridge of Lake Havasu City is all that small.
Here is Big Butt crossing the London Bridge:
A panoramic photo shows most of the 930 foot span:
A view under the bridge, beautiful Arizona mountains in the background. (Sorry, I don't know the name of the mountain.)
If you look at the 1890 image of the London Bridge, you will see light fixtures similar to this one:
We enjoyed our short visit to the London Bridge of Lake Havasu. Had a leisurely lunch under the bridge, several of us could not resist and had "fish and chips". The rest of us broke tradition and had salads and sandwiches.
The weather was delightful, had a great visit and fun meal with our friends, got to drive over the London Bridge, and I was pleasantly surprised, it was not small (at least not to me). This all made for a really nice day and more memories of THE Trip.
* Perhaps the best part of this day trip was the drive up and back, and, ya, I have photos, coming soon.
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1 comment:
Nice pictures Carol. Almost made me feel like we were there! LOL! I, like you, thought the bridge would be smaller from everyone's description of it! Will put that one on my bucket list.
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