What an exciting trip we had today! We’ve been reading a story called ‘Rosie Revere Engineer’ about a girl who is really interested in making inventions, and so we visited Tower Bridge to find out how it works.
We went into the engine room and saw the huge furnace that would have turned the water into steam, which makes the wheels and cogs turn, which would then open the bridge. We learnt that today the bridge is controlled using electricity, but it was really interesting to find out how it worked when it was made 125 years ago. We had to learn very technical language like crankshaft and cog. We learnt that it is a ‘bascule’ bridge, which means it opens like a sea saw, and found out why it was so important that it had to open. We even heard a story about a bus driver called Albert who drove over the bridge as it was opening – he had to speed up and jump over the gap!
Then we bravely went up to the walkway and walked on the glass – we could see the river underneath us and boats going under the bridge! We looked through the window to see if we could spot any other landmarks. We could see all sorts, like St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London and the Shard. We even saw The Monument which was exciting for us as we had learnt about it earlier in the term with the Great Fire of London.
We had such a fun day learning about a really important landmark in London and can’t wait to help Rosie Revere by writing reports and leaflets all about Tower Bridge.
