were converted from gas to electric light, making it the first street in Britain to be electrically illuminated. Walter Thornbury praised the new construction in his Old and New London of 1878: "not only has the [Victoria] Embankment added a handsome frontage to the side of the Thames, which previously had been a public eyesore, but it has also been the means of getting rid of the unequal deposits of mud in its bed, assisting the removal of the scour of the river, and consequently improving the health of the inhabitants of London." Bridges There was a flurry of bridge-building along the Thames from the City of London westwards during the 19th century, improving overland communication to Southwark. In 1800 there were only three bridges connecting Westminster and the city to the south bank: Westminster Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, and the ancient London Bridge. West of Westminster, the closest bridge was Battersea Bridge, three miles upstream. The four stone bridges grew progressively more decrepit as traffic increased: Westminster Bridge was badly subsiding by the 1830s, and several piers collapsed in 1846. Blackfriars was structurally unsound, requiring substantial repairs between 1833 and 1840. Old London Bridge, whose 20 piers dated back to the 13th century, so impeded the flow of the river that it formed dangerous rapids for boats, and its narrow width of 26 ft could not accommodate modern traffic levels. It was the first to be replaced, by a 49-foot (15-metre) wide granite bridge with five supporting arches. "New" London Bridge was built from 1824 to 1831, with the adjacent "Old" London Bridge fully dismantled by 1832. New Westminster Bridge, made of cast iron and resting on seven arches, was opened in 1862, replacing its unstable predecessor, and Blackfriars Bridge was demolished and rebuilt in cast iron beginning in 1864. In addition, several new bridges for road, pedestrian, and railway traffic were built: Southwark Bridge (1819), Waterloo Bridge (1817), Hungerford Bridge (opened in 1845 as a footbridge, and converted in 1859 into a combination footbridge/railway bridge for Charing Cross Station), and Tower Bridge (1894). Further upriver, the new bridges included Lambeth Bridge (1862), which replaced a centuries-old cross-river ferry service, Vauxhall Bridge (opened 1816), Victoria Bridge (opened in 1858 and later renamed Chelsea Bridge), and Wandsworth Bridge (1873). The impetus for this building was London's massive population growth, which put a constant strain on existing communications between the north and