Editing Waterloo Bridge (section)

===Second bridge===
[[File:Underside Waterloo Bridge.jpg|thumb|The design called for supporting beams only at the outside edges, to bring "light and sweetness" to the underside—[[Giles Gilbert Scott]], quoted in {{harvp|Hopkins|1970}}]]

In the 1930s, [[London County Council]] decided to demolish the bridge and replace it with a new structure designed by Sir [[Giles Gilbert Scott]]. The engineers were Ernest Buckton and John Cuerel of [[James Meadows Rendel (engineer)#London practice|Rendel Palmer & Tritton]]. The project was placed on hold due to the [[Second World War]].

Scott, by his own admission, was no engineer, and his design, with reinforced concrete beams (illustrated) under the footways, leaving the road to be supported by transverse slabs, was difficult to implement. The pairs of spans on each side of the river were supported by beams continuous over their piers, and these were [[cantilever]]ed out at their ends to support the centre span and the short approach slabs at the banks. The beams were shaped "to look as much like arches as ... beams can".<ref name=Hopkins/> They are clad in [[Portland stone]], which is cleaned by rain.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sutcliffe |first=Anthony |title=London: An Architectural History |url=https://archive.org/details/londonarchitectu0000sutc |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |location=New Haven, CT |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/londonarchitectu0000sutc/page/212 212]}}</ref> To guard against the possibility of further subsidence from scour, each pier was given a number of [[Jack (device)|jacks]] that can be used to level the structure.<ref name=Hopkins/>

Construction of the new bridge began in 1937 and it was partially opened on Tuesday 11 March 1942 and "officially opened" in September 1942.<ref>{{cite AV media |title=Life in the War |publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref> However, it was not fully completed until 1945.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://thames.me.uk/s00110.htm |title=Waterloo Bridge |website=Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide |first=John |last=Eade |access-date=7 April 2018 |archive-date=11 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511105003/http://thames.me.uk/s00110.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> It is the only Thames bridge to have been damaged by [[Germany|German]] bombers during the Second World War.

The building contractor was [[Peter Lind & Company]]. At the outbreak of war, despite an immediate order being issued by the Ministry of Transport, that the bridge construction was of national importance, the supply of male labour to execute the heavy works became acute. From the start of the war through to the bridge completion, women became the preponderant members of the construction workforce. This resulted in the project being referred to for many years as "The Ladies' Bridge".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.peterlind.co.uk/ladies_bridge.htm |title=The Ladies Bridge |last=Staff writer |publisher=Peter Lind & Company Limited |access-date=7 May 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121020816/http://www.peterlind.co.uk/ladies_bridge.htm |archive-date=21 November 2008 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.theladiesbridge.co.uk/extract.html |author=Karen Livesey |access-date=24 March 2015 |title=The Ladies Bridge |website=theladiesbridge.co.uk |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402200125/http://www.theladiesbridge.co.uk/extract.html |archive-date=2 April 2015 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> Lind used [[elm]] wood from the old bridge for the dining room floor of [[Hamstone House]], his house that he commissioned and built in 1938 at [[St George's Hill]] in Surrey.<ref name="Airs2002">{{cite book |author=Malcolm Airs |title=The Twentieth Century Great House |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f5kwAQAAIAAJ |year=2002 |publisher=Department for Continuing Education, Oxford University |isbn=978-0-903736-31-2 |page=72}}</ref>

[[Georgi Markov]], a Bulgarian [[dissident]], was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge on 7 September 1978 by agents of the Bulgarian [[secret police]], the [[Committee for State Security (Bulgaria)|Committee for State Security]], possibly assisted by the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] security agency, the [[KGB]]. He was killed with a poisoned pellet possibly fired from an umbrella.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.murdermap.co.uk/pages/cases/case.asp?CID=490612156 |title=Cold War Assassination: The Umbrella Murder of Georgi Markov|website=www.murdermap.co.uk |access-date=7 April 2018}}</ref>