Luggage storage
London Bridge

Have you arrived at London Bridge and want to explore but don’t want luggage and bags to slow you down? Why not use Nannybag to find a Nanny location (one of our partner stores, restaurants, etc.) near you where you can safely leave your baggage for a fee of only £6 per item per day? There is also free cancellation if plans change, and your bag is protected by insurance! Search for “London Bridge” in the app or website to find some nearby Nannies.

To get to the “Scare Maze” escape room near London Bridge, you just need to walk about ten minutes along Tooley Road eastwards. This escape room, as part of The London Bridge Experience, is a fun, interactive way to learn about the often gruesome history of London Bridge and the adjacent Tower of London, telling the stories of torture and execution that are associated with these historic locations. The London Bridge Experience is a popular and acclaimed attraction, but beware - it is quite scary!

The first bridge in London, joining the north and south banks of the river Thames, was built in Roman times, helping to form the town of Londinium. During the turbulent medieval period, various bridges were built and destroyed in conflicts between the Saxons and the Danes. In 1209, an enormous, costly stone bridge was finally finished under the reign of King John. It was an incredible feat of construction for the time, around 282 meters long and comprising of nineteen piers and nineteen arches. There was a chapel in the middle of the bridge and many residential homes - at its height, there were 140 houses built on the bridge! This old bridge was a somewhat gruesome place, as heads of traitors were often impaled on spikes and displayed on the drawbridge tower. Eventually, after many years of falling into disrepair, the medieval bridge was dismantled in 1832. In the meantime, work on a new London Bridge had begun and was completed in 1831, made of granite and comprised of five enormous granite arches designed by the famous architect John Rennie. However, it became clear that the bridge was sinking at a rate of an inch every eight years; Rennie had not accounted for double-decker buses and thousands of cars pounding his structure down into the river bed. Eventually, it was dismantled and sold to an American entrepreneur from Missouri, Robert P. McCullough. Therefore, work on the new, current bridge began in 1967 and was finished in 1973. 

Due to its central location, London Bridge is very convenient to travel to on public transport. London Bridge Underground station is serviced by the Northern and Jubilee lines. It’s also a National Rail station. The Thameslink Route offers access to Luton and Gatwick Airports, and the Southeastern service connects London Bridge with Kent, Sussex, and much of the south of England. 17,21,35,43,47,133,141,149,344, and 388 buses also stop nearby. 

Yes, the Shard Tower is situated right beside the south end of London Bridge. As the tallest building in the United Kingdom, you certainly shouldn’t have too much difficulty finding it!

These two Bridges are very often mistaken for one another, perhaps because people assume the bigger, more iconic Tower Bridge (finished in 1894) would bear the name of the capital city. Tower Bridge is comprised of two enormous towers in the middle of the river on piers, with an engine-powered drawbridge that opens around three times a day to let ships pass underneath. Meanwhile, the current London Bridge is a more standard, typical bridge and is located beside Tower Bridge to the west.

There have been various different bridges named “London Bridge” dating back to the earliest times in the city’s history, but the current structure was finished in 1973, replacing a 19th-century construction, which itself replaced a 600-year-old, medieval London Bridge.

The current, modern London Bridge was designed by the architect Lord Holford and the engineering firm Mott, Hay, and Anderson and built by the Mowlem contracting firm.

Borough Market is a five-minute walk southwest of the southern end of London Bridge. If you’re in the area, it’s certainly worth a visit; this historic market, dating from 1756, offers sustainably sourced, top-quality food products. It’s a great place to pick up some great fresh items or have lunch in the city's center.

London Bridge has a long and storied history, which can be read briefly below. However, when many people think of London Bridge, they think about the more iconic, recognizable Tower Bridge; indeed, a google search for London Bridge mostly gives you results for Tower Bridge. The confusion probably comes from the fact that people guess the most famous bridge in London would bear the city’s name. And, while for most of the city’s history, London Bridge has been the primary (and for centuries, the only) bridge in London, the sheer scale and beauty of Tower Bridge, completed in 1894 and located less than one kilometer to the East, has eclipsed it in fame.

This confusion has given rise to a prevalent myth. When the old London Bridge had been removed in 1967, City of London Council member Ivan Luckin had the strange idea of selling the dismantled bridge. Even more strangely, they found a buyer - an American entrepreneur, Robert P. McCullough, who was building a new community at Lake Havasu and wanted a project to build prestige and fame for his planned city. The exterior stonework of the old London Bridge, comprising 10,000 tons of granite blocks, was transported to California through the Panama Canal and then on trucks to the Arizona desert. The bridge was (re)completed in 1971 and connects an island in the Colorado River to the main city. However, rumors (later proved false) circulated that McCullough thought he had spent his $2.5 million on buying Tower Bridge and ended up bringing the wrong one halfway across the world!