Millennium Bridge workers are hanging a bale of straw under the structure to comply with an ancient bylaw that states when repair works to a bridge over the Thames are in progress, straw must be dangled to make passing boats aware of the work going on beneath it and the reduced clearance.
The Millennium Bridge was closed on Saturday October 14 for three weeks until 5 November as urgent repair and cleaning work had become necessary.
The Port of London Thames Byelaws clause 36.2 says: "When the headroom of an arch or span of a bridge is reduced from its usual limits, but that arch or span is not closed to navigation, the person in control of the bridge must suspend from the centre of that arch or span by day a bundle of straw large enough to be conspicuous and by night a white light."
The City Bridge Foundation, a charity that looks after London’s five major Thames crossings, said that part of the bridge had started to degrade and a layer of membrane needed to be replaced. A team will work on it for 24 hours a day to try to get the repairs done quickly.
"This is one of those quirky traditions London is famous for but it also does serve a practical purpose, to warn shipping when the headroom under a bridge span is reduced," a City Bridge Foundation spokesperson told City AM.
"The bundle of straw is lowered by our contractor when they’re doing work under the bridge, in this case to install netting ahead of work to replace the separation layer between the aluminium bridge deck and the steel structure underneath.
"As a 900-year-old charity which maintains five Thames crossings and is London’s biggest independent charity funder, we’re proud of the part we’ve played in the history of London and our modern day role looking after some of the capital’s key transport infrastructure."
The Millennium Bridge, officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, opened in 2000 and was the first new pedestrian bridge to be built across the Thames for more than a century, linking the City of London at St Paul’s Cathedral with the Tate Modern gallery at Bankside.
Ben Wilson also known as "the chewing gum man" has spent a decade painting on gum on the Millennium Bridge. He has pleaded for his works to be saved after being told most of them will be removed during the works.
