Lambeth Bridge is on the site of a horse ferry between the Palace of Westminster and Lambeth Palace on the south bank. Its name lives on in Horseferry Road, which forms the approach to the bridge on the north bank. The first modern bridge was a suspension bridge, long, designed by Peter W. Barlow. Sanctioned by an Act of Parliament in 1860, it opened as a toll bridge on 10 November 1862. Doubts about its safety, coupled with its awkwardly steep approaches deterring horse-drawn traffic, meant it soon became used almost solely as a pedestrian crossing. It ceased to be a toll bridge in 1879 when the Metropolitan Board of Works assumed responsibility for its upkeep — it was by then severely corroded, and by 1910 it was closed to vehicular traffic. The London County Council prepared a masterplan for the area, including a replacement road bridge linking to a widened Horseferry Road, which was authorised by London County Council Act 1924. Before work had started on the project, the 1928 Thames flood caused extensive destruction of property in the Millbank area. Following the flood the Chelsea Embankment was rebuilt and raised, resulting in some minor redesign of the approaches, and creating the open space to the north of Lambeth Bridge now known as Victoria Tower Gardens South. During the period of delay, the bridge was also redesigned to be able to cope with a higher weight of motorised traffic. The current structure, a five-span steel arch, designed by engineer Sir George Humphreys and architects Sir Reginald Blomfield and G. Topham Forrest, was built by Dorman Long and opened on 19 July 1932 by King George V. It formerly carried four lanes of road traffic from a roundabout junction by the Lambeth Palace northwards to another roundabout, where the Millbank road meets Horseferry Road. The bridge is notable at road level for the pairs of obelisks at either end of the bridge, which are surmounted by stone pinecones. However, there is a popular urban legend that they are pineapples, as a tribute to Lambeth resident John Tradescant the younger, who is said to have grown the first pineapple in Britain. The bridge was declared a Grade II listed structure in 2008, providing protection to preserve its special character from unsympathetic development. The listing designation includes the parapets, lamps, obelisks and the approach walls.
