Turner’s surfaces are still startling ... Turner makes light the vehicle of feeling. And he found inspiration for an amazing variety of ways to express feeling from the River Thames. Matthew Collings, Turner’s Thames, BBC 2012
Turner always returned to this relationship with the Thames. ibid.
Moonlight – A Study At Millbank ... Mood, feeling, emotion, ideas. ibid.
Turner was an awkward cuss as a personality. ibid.
Turner becomes the great romantic artist. Turner’s romantic ideal was that everything should seem to be either on the verge of dissolving or just about to be born. ibid.
His poetic painting. ibid.
Turner is the maverick artist, the visionary who is using the Thames as a trigger for an idealised scene that evokes the texture of everyday life as it was living in 1809. ibid.
In Turner’s time the sublime implied the greatest intensity of feeling. ibid.
England: Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent’s Birthday: It’s Turner’s big public statement to the nation. ibid.
The role of emotion in his art and its link to colour. ibid.
The solitary king of light. ibid.
The Fighting Temeraire: The magnitude and sorrow of loss. ibid.
A profoundly talented artist. ibid.
The River Thames, January 1806: All of London has turned out to witness the most elaborate funeral procession in living memory. A broken body is being escorted home with the pomp and ceremony usually reserved for royalty. The man who three months ago gave his life in his hour of triumph at the Battle of Trafalgar is laid to rest with a state funeral at St Paul’s cathedral. And in this moment, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson becomes a cult figure, representing for many victory and glory. Nelson: Britain’s Great Naval Hero, Channel 5 2020
London’s Millennium Bridge is the first new crossing over the River Thames for more than a century ... 325-metres long and 4-metres wide steel blade. How Britain’s Bridges the World, H2 2013
Twenty-eight bridges span the river … ‘I’m standing in front of the most iconic bridge on the Thames: Tower Bridge. Everybody knows it. It’s got those twin towers. And it was built in 1894 so that the shipping could still come into this very valuable bit of water, the pool of London … It looks medieval, and that was the plan … It’s a really early steel-framed construction, but on the outside they put Cornish Granite and Portland Stone dressings … So it looks like a medieval castle’ Sophie Campbell, The River Thames: Then & Now, Channel 5 2020
London, England: a bridge that made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Bridges have been across the Thames for centuries. But twenty years ago a new iconic bridge left pedestrians with a very queasy feeling … The Millennium Bridge: a unique pedestrian-only crossing spanning the Thames. Massive Engineering Mistakes s1e1, Quest 2020
Brunel: One of the greatest ever feats of engineering – this tunnel under the Thames. Rob Bell, Brunel: The Man Who Built Britain, Channel 5 2017
Bridges are at the heart of all our lives. They connect people and places. But they also change things for ever. I want to find out how London’s bridges changed Britain. Rob Bell, London’s Greatest Bridges I: Secrets of London Bridge, Channel 5 2021
I’m looking at the first bridge of them all. For over 1,700 years the only bridge in the city – London Bridge. ibid.
Until the 12th century when some descriptions of a truly spectacular bridge appear … It is covered in buildings … the churches. ibid.
The heads of enemies of the state were a feature of the bridge for nearly 400 years. ibid.
The houses came down, as did the shops and the businesses. ibid.
One of the designs came from an engineering legend, Thomas Telford … It is utterly spectacular … This single arch … This is stunning. So clean. So why wasn’t it built? ibid.
The most iconic bridge of them all: Tower Bridge … Why it became the bridge at the centre of the world. Rob Bell, London’s Greatest Bridges II: Tower Bridge: Gateway to London
What was at one time London’s port … One of the most multicultural corners of the world in the nineteenth century. ibid.
It was the design changes once Barry was on board that turned Jones’s concept into a workable bridge. ibid.
Peel back that masonry and the skeleton is made up of 11,000 tons of steel. ibid.
A bridge shrouded in dirty politics right from the start – Westminster bridge. Its history is entwined with the governance of Britain, its politicians and people. Because from its construction in the eighteenth century to its modern-day incarnation Westminster bridge’s story is one of argument, protest and sabotage. Rob Bell, London’s Greatest Bridges III: Westminster Bridge
For the first time in 500 years a new bridge was to be built in London … The bridge was finally completed in 1750. ibid.
What of the bridge that would replace it? And how would that define a new Victorian London? ibid.
Waterloo bridge, a bridge forged in a era of industrial triumph, and rebuilt in the darkest days of war. Rob Bell, London’s Greatest Bridges IV: Waterloo Bridge
In 1817 Reny’s masterpiece was finally finished. It was nearly a kilometre long and weighed 100,000 tons. It was the most expensive bridge ever built in Britain and hugely over budget.
In 1878 the bridge was nationalised for less than half its construction cost. ibid.