LAMBETH BRIDGE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 18, 21 July 1932, Page 11

LAMBETH BRIDGE

OPENED BY THE KING

PART IN LONDON TRAFFIC

INTERESTING SPEECH

(Britlsh Official Wireless.)

ETJGBY, 19th-"July.

The new five-span bridge across the Thames at Lambeth was opened by the Xii g this afternoon. The bridge is an extremely: graceful structure, built of steel and covered with a skin of granite. It has impressive pylons topped by lights at tho approachesj and forms a very import-ant part in the rcplanning of London's traffic arrangements by opening up a new east-and-west route across the capital, thereby easing congestion elsewhere. The bridge was f.esigned by Sir Reginald Blomfield aid was erected by Messrs. Dorman, Loug, the well-known engiiieers.-

The actual opening ceremony took a novel form. After the King and Queen had signed the London County Council's records, His Majesty used the pen to make an electric contact which caused the barriers across the bridge to rise perpendicularly' into the air, . Union Jacks breaking from their tops. Thousands of school children who.lined the bridge burst into cheers, and the trumpeters of the Life Guards' blow a fanfare. MOTOR AND TRANSPORT. Replying to an address, the Bang reculled that since his parents opened the former Lambeth Bridge fifty-throe years ago great alterations hui occurred in the social conditions of London. ' The population of the vast area called Greater London had increased by 3,000,000, and among other momentous changes'had been, the transformation of the means of transport through the invention of the motor-car. A fresh problem had . been created for local authorities -by these changes. To guide and control the development of London, to improve its housing, nnd_ its "means of communication, and to raise the standard of the over-grow-ing amenities of daily life, were described by the King as tasks of paramount importance and complexity. After expressing his personal' interest in London's traffic problems, His Majesty Baid that the new Lambeth Bridge would remain a" monument to the skill' and energy of the engineers, architects, and all grades of workers, to.whom he offered congratulations on- tho completion of their great enterprise. Four workmen—a mason, a steelerector, a pier-sinker, and a clerk, of works—representing the men',who built tho bridge,-were presented to'the King.