Hotel near the Tower Bridge

Located in central London, the London Kensington Forum provides the ideal accommodation for visitors to London’s fascinating Tower Bridge.

The Tower Bridge Exhibition, created on the bridge’s lofty walkways, is a fascinating insight into the background, design and engineering of the most famous bridge in the world.

Using original designs and materials as well as audio visual aids, it shows how, by the mid 19th century, the traffic from London’s booming east end was at a virtual standstill. A bridge had to be built downstream of London Bridge, yet without disrupting existing river traffic.

In 1884 a design was chosen from amongst 50 submitted. Horace Jones’ and John Wolfe Barry’s Tower Bridge took 9 years to build and was the largest, most sophisticated bascule bridge ever completed.

Its hydraulic system used steam to power the enormous pumping engines and the energy created was stored in massive accumulators.

When required, the driving engines could raise the bascules to a maximum 96-degree angle in around one minute to let river traffic through.

The Tower Bridge Exhibition has the added bonus of giving a panoramic view of London from its covered walkways.

Today, the bridge is crossed by over 40,000 people a day and the bascules are raised around 1,000 times a year. And although river traffic is much reduced, it still takes priority over road traffic.

Open from 1st April to 30th September 10.00 to 18.30 and 1st October to 31st March 09.30 to 1800, Tower Bridge is a short tube journey from the London Kensington Forum.