Tower Bridge (That Part That Lies Within the Borough of Southwark)

Tower Bridge, located in Southwark, is a bridge built between 1886 and 1894 by engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry and architect Sir Horace Jones for the City Corporation. It is a low-level bascule bridge featuring wider side spans supported by curved lattice girders and a central narrower opening section. The steel structure is complemented by twin Gothic towers that rise from 21.3 meters (70 feet) broad piers, which support the bascules and house their counterbalances.

The towers are clad in rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings and feature high-pitched slate roofs behind stone battlemented parapets. High-level footbridges connect the towers, incorporating ties between the two suspended spans and linking the entire bridge as a continuous structure. Each tower has four stages with corner turrets topped by pinnacles. After Jones's death, some architectural detailing was added.

Elaborate Gothic-style windows are present above the archway on each level, surmounted by dormer features in the roof, with moulded string courses between floors. The lower approach tower, which has a twin on the north side, is designed in a similar Gothic style and features a large elliptical archway that spans the road. Although the bascules were electrified in 1976, some of the original hydraulic machinery by Armstrong Mitchell & Co. and the steam pumping engines are preserved under the south approach viaduct. Additionally, an accumulator tower and chimney stack are built onto the east side of the southern approach.