Westminster

This is a Selfridge postcard in their W & K series sold in their London store, the view is looking south from either the roof or one of the top storeys of the Cecil Hotel. Trams are running along Victoria Embankment, so this is after 1906, the two clues as to the date are the paddle steamer at Charing Cross Pier and the white structure just downstream of Westminster Bridge on the south bank. After the collapse of the London County Council river boat service in 1907, all thirty boats were sold at auction in 1909. Ten of the boats were purchased by the City Steamboat Company who operated them on the River Thames until the outbreak of the first world war, they kept the LCC livery except for the paddle boxes, the LCC initials were prominently displayed and this has been replaced with the City Steamboat logo. The white structure is a coffer dam which was built throughout 1909 in order that an embankment wall could be built in front of the proposed new County Hall building, it was during these excavations that the Roman ocean-going boat was discovered in the river mud, nineteen feet below high water. The boat can now be seen at the Museum of London. The coffer dam looks almost complete, it was completed in September 1909 and I believe the photograph was taken in late summer. In the distance south of Westminster Bridge is the old Lambeth Suspension Bridge which in 1910 was used by pedestrians after traffic was banned due to the unsafe nature of the bridge, it was replaced by the current Lambeth Bridge in 1932.

Done