Unbuilt London: A Garden Bridge across the Thames

Long before Joanna Lumley went all AbFab over the idea of a garden bridge across the Thames, there was an earlier, and fortunately, never built plan for a garden bridge.

Less a bridge to cross the Thames than a saccharine laden memorial to the late Diana Princess of Wales.

Proposed, possibly seriously, hopefully just for the publicity value, by FAT Architecture, in response to a serious competition to design a bridge, it would have been a narrow span crossing the Thames where the Millennium Bridge is today.

The narrow path would have been lain with turf from Althorp park, the family seat of the Spencer family, although it would have certainly turned to mud within days of thousands of feet trampling across it.

The strip of parkland was however not for something as indelicate as simply getting from A to B, but a memorial garden, where it was expected people would lay flowers and tributes forever in memory of the People’s Princess.

If that wasn’t kitch enough, the lyrics to Elton John’s tribute song, “Candle in the Wind 98” would have been carved into the stone balustrades of the bridge.

Overblown, probably far too expensive and of no practical use, this garden bridge, fortunately, died a swift death, and a wobbly bridge was constructed instead.

Sources:

Dezeen

FAT Architecture