It was a moment in London’s construction history which has always intrigued me. My photos of it were taken in March 2012:
That’s right. Those strange ghost columns were, for a few short months or years (I don’t recall), being used as so many tiny building sites, supporting the construction of the Blackfriars Bridge railway station.
I regret that some more permanent use could have been found for these ghost columns. Maybe some sort of pedestrian bridge? But I suppose these columns are distrusted for anything but the lightest use, such as we observe in the above photos.
If you read this, you will learn that these ghosts used to come in threes, rather than in the twos we observe now. The inner columns became part of the new bridge.
But if those columns were good enough to do that job, why cannot their brethren be made more use of?
It seems a shame. It seems like a missed opportunity.
I think I may have said something like this here before. So be it. It bears repetition.
Alastair James supplies further info:
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Back in 2013 Boris suggested that the re-developers of Ludgate and Sampson Houses, which are the two office blocks on either side of the railway on the south side of the bridges, might be required to develop a park or bridge on the disused pillars as part of the conditions associated with the granting of planning permission. However nothing seems to have come of it as the pillars are not mentioned on the developers website and the demolition of Ludgate House has just finished so presumably the planned development is proceeding.
By the way Brian your website is loading much quicker recently. Has there been some sort of upgrade.
Posted by Alastair James on 28 August 2018
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Alastair James
Thanks for the most informative, as always, comment.
And yes, I also noticed that this blog just got a bit quicker.
I think this blog may have discovered that I have been working on a new replacement blog. Which I have been. That, on the other hand, has been going very slowly.
Posted by Brian Micklethwait on 28 August 2018