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Tower Subway

1869 establishments in England2 ft 6 in gauge railways in EnglandBuildings and structures in the London Borough of SouthwarkBuildings and structures in the London Borough of Tower HamletsFormer toll tunnels
History of the London Borough of SouthwarkHistory of the London Borough of Tower HamletsPedestrian tunnels in the United KingdomTunnels completed in 1869Tunnels underneath the River Thames
Tower subway map
Tower subway map

The Tower Subway is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in central London, between Tower Hill on the north bank of the river and Vine Lane (off Tooley Street) on the south. In 1869 a 1,340-foot-long (410 m) circular tunnel was dug through the London clay using a cast iron shield, an idea that had been patented in 1864 by Peter W. Barlow but never built.A 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway was laid in the tunnel and from August 1870 a cable-hauled wooden carriage conveyed passengers from one end to the other. This was uneconomic and the company went bankrupt by the end of the year. The tunnel was converted to pedestrian use and one million people a year crossed under the river, paying a toll of a ha'penny. The opening of the toll-free Tower Bridge nearby in 1894 caused a drop in income and the tunnel closed in 1898, after being sold to the London Hydraulic Power Company. Today the tunnel is used for water mains. The same shield method of construction was used in 1890 to dig the tunnels of the City and South London Railway, the first of London's electrified "Tube" railways and the first underground electrified railway in the world.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Tower Subway (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Tower Subway
Petty Wales, London Whitechapel

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Latitude Longitude
N 51.508333333333 ° E -0.078888888888889 °
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Address

London Hydraulic Power Company (Tower Subway Entrance)

Petty Wales
EC3R 5BT London, Whitechapel
England, United Kingdom
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Malta George Cross Memorial
Malta George Cross Memorial

The Malta George Cross Memorial, also known as the Maltese Memorial, is a war memorial in London, built to commemorate the Siege of Malta in the Second World War, which led to the island's being collectively awarded the George Cross in April 1942. The memorial was unveiled in 2005, near All Hallows by the Tower. The memorial is constructed from a large rectangular monolithic block of limestone from the Maltese island of Gozo. The block stands 3 metres (9.8 ft) high and weighs 8.5 tons. It bears an inscribed black slate panel on each of its four sides. The main panel to the southeast recounts the Siege of Malta from 1940 to 1943, and the consequent loss of 7,000 lives of Maltese civilians and Allied and Commonwealth service personnel. A Maltese cross is displayed above this main panel. Further details of the siege are inscribed on a second panel on the northwest face of the memorial. The panel to the northeast gives details of the award of the George Cross, and the panel to the southwest has a map illustrating the Allied operations in the Mediterranean Sea. The stone was presented by the Government of Malta and erected by the George Cross Island Association in 2005, for the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was unveiled on 15 August 2005 by the President of Malta Eddie Fenech Adami, and dedicated by Vincent Nichols, then the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, with a wreath laid by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The date was the 63rd anniversary of the arrival of the last surviving ship of the Operation Pedestal convoy at Valletta Grand Harbour that provided critical supplies during the siege. The unveiling was attended by approximately 100 veterans of the Malta campaign, and representatives of Allied and Commonwealth forces. The stone was a bright white colour when it was unveiled, but has been weathered and darkened. There is a further memorial to the George Cross Island Association at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas near Lichfield, and one in the Peace Garden of the former Anglican Church of St Luke, Liverpool.

Tower Hill Memorial
Tower Hill Memorial

The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square Gardens, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate civilian merchant sailors and fishermen who were killed as a result of enemy action and have no known grave. The first, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1928; the second, the Merchant Seamen's Memorial, was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and unveiled in 1955. A third memorial, commemorating merchant sailors who were killed in the 1982 Falklands War, was added to the site in 2005. The first memorial was commissioned in light of the heavy losses sustained by merchant shipping in the First World War—more than 17,000 lives were lost and some 3,300 British and Empire-registered commercial vessels sunk as a result of enemy action. The Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) commissioned Lutyens, who initially designed a massive arch on the banks of the River Thames, but this was rejected by the authorities, to Lutyens' disdain. A compromise was struck, as a result of which the memorial was constructed in Trinity Square Gardens on Tower Hill, a site further from the river but with a long maritime history. The site was crown land, meaning a special Act of Parliament was required to allow the construction. Queen Mary unveiled the memorial on 12 December 1928 at a ceremony broadcast live on the radio, her first use of the medium. The memorial is a vaulted corridor reminiscent of a Doric temple and similar to Lutyens' structures in cemeteries on the Western Front. The walls are clad with bronze panels which bear the names of the missing. Merchant shipping losses in the Second World War were significantly higher than in the first (4,786 ships, 32,000 lives) and the IWGC commissioned a second memorial on the same site, intended to complement the first. Maufe designed a sunken garden, accessed by steps behind the original memorial, the walls of which were again clad with bronze panels with the names of the missing. At regular intervals between the panels are relief sculptures (by Charles Wheeler) representing the seven seas. Wheeler also sculpted two sentries, a Merchant Navy sailor and officer, which stand at the top of the steps. The new memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in November 1955, after which relatives of those named on it were invited to lay flowers. The memorials to the world wars are both listed buildings—the Mercantile Marine Memorial is grade I and part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials, and Maufe's Merchant Seamen's Memorial is listed at grade II*. The Falklands War memorial is not listed.