The Millennium Bridge
A modern, iconic pedestrian bridge opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 10 June 2000, it was the first bridge built across the Thames in London for more than 100 years. Designed and operated as a pedestrian bridge, it's a great location for the 2000th footbridge in the popular and expanding 'Little Bridges' series. At 325m in length and 4m wide, it's at the 'rather large' end of 'Little Bridges'.
Constructed in steel with an aluminium deck, the laterally suspended footbridge connects the north bank of the Thames near St Paul's Cathedral with the Tate Modern on the South Bank, adjacent to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Looking across the river from the south end of the bridge, the structure neatly frames the dome of St Paul's for a stunning photo opportunity.
Unfortunately for the Millennium Bridge, things got off to a shaky start - quite literally. A 'lateral synchronous excitation' was discovered by the 80,000-90,000 people reported to have crossed the bridge on the opening day. As they crossed, pedestrians tried to maintain their balance and naturally matched their footsteps to the sway of the bridge, This led to a side-to-side motion of up to 70mm (3 inches), enough that Londoners dubbed this landmark the 'Wobbly Bridge'. Amid safety concerns, the bridge was closed two days later. Only after extensive modifications to dampen the oscillations was the bridge re-opened in February 2002. Since then, it has been a popular and safe pedestrian walkway, closing only once more in 2007 due to extreme weather. Many believe the bridge represents good value for the £18.2m it cost to construct.
Works of Art
Alongside the nearby Tate Modern, the bridge has its own modern art collection with over 400 tiny paintings scattered across the bridge. These are understood to be the work of street artist, Ben Wilson, who uses an unusual canvas for his acrylic paintings - chewing gum dropped by careless visitors! Lower your gaze to see what you can spot at your feet... once you 'get your eye in', you will see dozens of miniature masterpieces, like this one...
The Cache
This is a multi-cache due to proximity of the bridge to other caches.
To find the cache, start at the north end of the bridge (Waypoint 1) to obtain the northings. Then head to the south end of the bridge (Waypoint 2) to get the westings.
Don't forget to stop mid-span to take in the views along the river. There's a plaque on the safety rail to help your identify iconic landmarks you can see from the bridge.
Waypoint 1 - There's a plaque on the ground at the threshold of the north side of the bridge. Count the number of letters in the indicated words on the plaque's inscription, to find the Northings.
N51 (14th x 9th) . (7th) (2nd) (3rd - 4th)
Waypoint 2 - Go to the engraved glass panel at the southern end of the bridge deck. Along the top line, identify an English town amongst the names listed. Use the values of the letters in the town's name to find the Westings.
W000 (2nd / 1st) . (5th) (6th) (9th)
Now continue down to the South Bank and head past the Globe Theatre to the final location. You can check your coordinates on Geochecker.com
If this is your first Little Bridge, congratulations! There are plenty more to find!
About the Little Bridges Series...
The Little Bridges series was started by Stanthews in 2009 to highlight small footbridges in remote parts of Wiltshire. Since then the series has been expanded by others all over the country and starting to spread fast.
Damian from Winter Foxes created and updated the stats for the initial list of cachers who had found 10 or more little bridges. This was then taken over and moved to its current wordpress site by Fred (Bloodsock) and finally handed over to Daren (BillieTheCat) for updates and maintenance.
If you would like to add to the series, please contact Stan here and he will give you a number for your bridge, to qualify, the bridge must be a foot bridge too small for vehicles.
Please make sure your title exactly matches “Little Bridges # xx then name” including spaces so it will get picked up and added to the Stats page.