WATERLOO BRIDGE

Evening Star, Issue 25674, 24 December 1945, Page 4

WATERLOO BRIDGE

SUCCESSOR TO RENNIE'S MASTERPIECE ORIGINAL OPENING CEREMONY RECALLED (From Our Correspondent.) (By Air Mail.) LONDON, December 13. This week we saw the homely figuro of Sir Herbert Morrison, buttoned up to the ears, in the London fog, cutting a tape and afterwards walking in stately procession across Waterloo Bridge to declare its formal opening. The Lord President of the Council, his hair as riotous as ever, performed his part of the ceremony with .fitting dignity, but he may be forgiven a covert smile if he recalled the opening ceremony of the original Rennie bridge; That was performed in 1817 by the Prince Regent, accompanied by tbe Royal Duke„s and Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington, and attended by a brilliant staff of officers who had themselves been present at the Battle of Waterloo. . If this week’s occasion lacked something of old-world glamour, the bridge itself is a worthy successor of Rennie’s masterpiece,. which the great Canova himself considered “ the noblest bridge in the world.” All but’ the permanent halustrates are now complete, and four stone blocks at the ends are intended later for appropriate sculpture groups. It would be fitting if Rennie were made the subject of one of them.