Crossing
The safety rails casting shadows on the footpath over the bridge. Many people have committed suicide by jumping over the rails so now they are higher making it very difficult climb up.On Friday, 8 May 1885, Thomas Stevens, resident inspector for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, reported that Ms. Henley had climbed over the railings and on to the parapet. Before anyone could reach her, she had thrown herself off. Witnesses claimed that a billowing effect created by an updraft of air beneath her crinoline skirt slowed the pace of her fall, misdirecting her away from the water and instead toward the muddy banks of the Bristol side of the Avon River. Although there is no evidence that the wind or the skirt saved Ms. Henley from the fall, the story has nevertheless become a local Bristol legend.
An article dated 16 May 1885 in the City Notes of a local newspaper, the Bristol Magpie, reports as follows:
"The rash act was the result of a lovers quarrel. A young man, a porter on the Great Western Railway, determined to break off the engagement, wrote a letter to the young woman announcing his intention. This preyed on the girl's mind, and she, in a state of despair, rushed to end her life by the fearful leap from the Suspension Bridge."
Crossing
The safety rails casting shadows on the footpath over the bridge. Many people have committed suicide by jumping over the rails so now they are higher making it very difficult climb up.On Friday, 8 May 1885, Thomas Stevens, resident inspector for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, reported that Ms. Henley had climbed over the railings and on to the parapet. Before anyone could reach her, she had thrown herself off. Witnesses claimed that a billowing effect created by an updraft of air beneath her crinoline skirt slowed the pace of her fall, misdirecting her away from the water and instead toward the muddy banks of the Bristol side of the Avon River. Although there is no evidence that the wind or the skirt saved Ms. Henley from the fall, the story has nevertheless become a local Bristol legend.
An article dated 16 May 1885 in the City Notes of a local newspaper, the Bristol Magpie, reports as follows:
"The rash act was the result of a lovers quarrel. A young man, a porter on the Great Western Railway, determined to break off the engagement, wrote a letter to the young woman announcing his intention. This preyed on the girl's mind, and she, in a state of despair, rushed to end her life by the fearful leap from the Suspension Bridge."