162: Building Tower Bridge

How Tower Bridge Was Built: The Untold Story of London's Most Famous Bridge Discover the remarkable history behind Tower Bridge, one of London's most iconic landmarks. Learn how political battles, engineering innovation, and Victorian ambition transformed a transport crisis into one of the greatest bridge-building achievements of the nineteenth century. 00:00 Building Tower Bridge 01:00 Why London Needed a New Thames Crossing 03:00 The Engineering Challenge 05:00 Early Designs and Political Battles 06:00 Choosing the Bascule Design 06:30 Horace Jones and John Wolfe Barry 08:00 The Tower Bridge Act of 1885 10:00 Building the Foundations Beneath the Thames 12:00 The Six Divers of Tower Bridge 14:00 Constructing the Steel Superstructure 16:00 The Revolutionary Hydraulic System 18:00 Victorian Engineering and Safety Standards 20:00 Costs, Delays and Human Sacrifice 22:00 Legal Disputes During Construction 24:45 Why Victorian Critics Hated Tower Bridge 27:30 The Grand Opening of 1894 29:00 Tower Bridge's Lasting Legacy