The Chain Bridge
The Széchenyi Chain Bridge is Budapest’s most famous landmark.
It is named after the main facilitator of its construction, the great Hungarian statesman and Anglophile Count István Széchenyi.
In 1820, this most influential of reformers found himself stuck on the Pest side of the Danube, unable to attend his father’s funeral on the Buda side. An inveterate traveller, Széchenyi admired many of the initiatives he saw around the industrialized world.
So it was that he commissioned William Tierney Clark, responsible for the suspension bridge at Marlow, near London, to create a similar model in Budapest.
Tierney Clark duly submitted his plans but spent little time in the Hungarian capital, leaving his Scottish namesake Adam Clark to oversee construction.
In the time it took, from 1839 to 1849, the city evolved from a dusty town beyond Vienna to a busy Central-European metropolis.
While Adam Clark became a national hero, marrying here and settling down, his house near the bridge marked with a plaque, his bridge became a symbol of the city’s development and the connection between East and West.
The Chain Bridge
The Széchenyi Chain Bridge is Budapest’s most famous landmark.
It is named after the main facilitator of its construction, the great Hungarian statesman and Anglophile Count István Széchenyi.
In 1820, this most influential of reformers found himself stuck on the Pest side of the Danube, unable to attend his father’s funeral on the Buda side. An inveterate traveller, Széchenyi admired many of the initiatives he saw around the industrialized world.
So it was that he commissioned William Tierney Clark, responsible for the suspension bridge at Marlow, near London, to create a similar model in Budapest.
Tierney Clark duly submitted his plans but spent little time in the Hungarian capital, leaving his Scottish namesake Adam Clark to oversee construction.
In the time it took, from 1839 to 1849, the city evolved from a dusty town beyond Vienna to a busy Central-European metropolis.
While Adam Clark became a national hero, marrying here and settling down, his house near the bridge marked with a plaque, his bridge became a symbol of the city’s development and the connection between East and West.