History tells us that during the 19th century, the economic development in the East end of London brought the need to build a new bridge in addition to the historic London Bridge. This I knew thanks to the tourist guide that I spoke of the famous Tower Bridge while we traveled the River Thames. That was the first time that I saw a drawbridge so I think that my face of surprise was what motivated my guide to give me as much detail. At first I asked myself what was what motivated the British to build a drawbridge and not a normal bridge? What explained the guide was that if a fixed bridge was built, it was going to cut off access to the port of London. What was wanted was not to cut the development of that side of the city and it seems that they succeeded, because there are numerous hostels in East London, of course, because tourists come to lots. I was one of them, although I preferred for my short stay London youth hostels.

Continuing with the historical details, it is known that in 1876 was a contest to design the bridge that would solve the problems of traffic to the East of the city and is not a problem for the port. In 1884, an architect of surname Jones presented a drawbridge of 244 meters in length with two central towers, spaced 200 feet from one another. At the beginning it seemed impossible because each cam weighs more than thousand tons, but the engineering of the time suggested that the cams are contrapesaran to minimize the effort of lifting, a system with steam engines. Now, is doing the same with oil and electric motors. How will it evolve in the future? We don’t know, but we know that he is a bridge that solves many problems of the moment and made known even the city, because it has appeared in many movies such as the Mummy and Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix. Design practical and attractive at the same time, all a genius Mr. Jones.