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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 22:24, 6 June 2009 [1].

Battersea Bridge

[edit]
Nominator(s):  – iridescent 22:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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Did You Know… that the great×8 grandfather of the Princess of Wales commissioned Battersea Bridge, and in 2006 a whale was found under the bridge? Coincidence? You decide…

Yet another one in the Thames Bridges series, and hopefully those who know it only as the rather unloved current bridge will be interested to see that there's a genuinely interesting history behind it, while those who don't know it at all will see that the parts of London outside the City and West End tourist centres and the leafy suburbs have interesting stories in their own right. As with the last couple in this series, I think this says everything that ought to be said on the topic without going into excessive detail. – iridescent 22:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Copy-edited (n-dashes, some repetitive word usage, etc.)
  • Harvard links from footnotes to references checked. Publication year for Pay, Lloyd and Waldegrave corrected, now consistent with date listed in references section. All links from notes to references work correctly.
  • Article has no ambiguous links. JN466 09:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
least busy.. - pity there ain't a positive ta use 'ere. I'd say "quietest" but not sure how general that is.
Parliamentary concerns about the reliability of the bridge obliged the Battersea Bridge Company to provide a ferry service.. "obliged" sounds funny used in the active here, but I am having trouble thinking of an alternative.
Addendum - actually I did think of one more thing - is there anything on how the presence of a new crossing impacted on the development (or otherwise) of Battersea? I remember reading about the history of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and it was interesting how surrounding areas change with new crossings etc. This would be a good addition and I hope it can be found :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Trouble is, there isn't an obvious antonym for "busy". "Quietest" has connotations of noise (and the much busier London Bridge, for example, built in the 1970s with the advantage of 75 years of technological advances, probably generates less noise).
The wording in the original source was "a clause was inserted into the Act to the effect that [Spencer] must provide a ferry service at the same rate as the bridge tolls in case the bridge was closed for repairs". I was trying to summarise it in a less clumsy way. I can't think of a less clumsy word than "obliged", but if anyone can, feel free to change it.
Because it was sandwiched between two existing bridges a couple of miles either side, and because there wasn't a major north/south road here, Battersea Bridge didn't have the same impact on development as, for example, Vauxhall Bridge did in opening up the south bank. Because of the time period in question, it's pretty much impossible to separate out what development (if any) was due to the bridge itself, from the broader urban sprawl caused by the railways. Certainly on this map of 1850 – 80 years after the bridge opened – the Battersea side is still farmland (and, oddly, a turpentine factory), while the Chelsea side marks the western limit of London, which makes me think that the driving factor in growth was Battersea railway station (opened 1863) and not the bridge. – iridescent 14:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good reasoning and noted. That would be good to put in article if it can be referenced that it didn't impact on the development, but I concede that might not actually be mentioned anywhere, so again, no biggie. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions for "obliged":
  1. Parliament was concerned about the reliability of the bridge and required the Battersea Bridge Company to provide a ferry service ... (in that case, change "required" to "needed" a couple of sentences earlier on, to avoid the repetition of "required")
  2. Due to parliamentary concerns about the reliability of the bridge, the Battersea Bridge Company was obliged to provide a ferry service ...
  3. Concerns were expressed in parliament about the reliability of the bridge, and the Battersea Bridge Company was obliged to provide a ferry service ...
Looking at the flow of the paragraph as a whole, I think my preference would be for no. 3. JN466 14:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions for "least busy":
  1. As the narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it carries less traffic than most of the other Thames bridges in London.
  2. The narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it is less busy than most of the other Thames bridges in London. JN466 14:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with 3 for "obliged" and have changed it accordingly. Regarding "least busy", I personally think "one of the least busy" scans better than "less busy than most of the others" – that "most of the others" sounds a bit so-what to me – but wouldn't lose sleep either way. – iridescent 15:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. The only other solution I could offer would be As the narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it carries comparatively little traffic. But I have no problem with the current text either. JN466 15:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Me to with no. 3 for "obliged", and agree the other is tricky and was pondering out loud more than anything. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Potentially useful info at: Conservation of bridges By G. P. Tilly, Alan Frost, Jon Wallsgrove, Gifford and Partners Taylor & Francis, 2002. ISBN 0419259104. pp. 87-88. Ling.Nut (talk) 08:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apparently 15,000 vehicles/pedestrians (?) traverse the bridge in a 12-hour period, see p. 401 An Economic Study of the City of London. By John Dunning, Economists Advisory Group, E. Victor Morgan, City of London (England). Court of Common Council. Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0415313481 Ling.Nut (talk) 09:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mmmm, apparently Hilaire Belloc wrote a poem called "stanzas written on Battersea Bridge during a South-Westerly gale," the full text of which is online. Ling.Nut (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Will have a look at the "Conservation" one if I can find it. Cookson, which I've used quite heavily as a source, references it in the bibliography so I suspect any relevant material is already there; I don't want to get too heavily into the 1992 restoration (which isn't all that major a development, consisting mainly of repainting it back to its original colors and restoring the design of the original lamp-posts).
Regarding passenger traffic, on all this series I'm using Transport for London's AADT figure for 2004 (the most recent I can find that lists all the bridges, so the one I've used for consistency in comparison) which in this case was 26,041. Personally I think using multiple data sets would be too confusing, as well as the ambiguity of "12 hour period" (1900-0700 presumably has a completely different traffic pattern to 0700-1900, for example).
There are quite a lot of poems, letters etc – Wordsworth & Tennyson certainly wrote about it as well. While I've included a section on its significance in painting (as the subject of Whistler v Ruskin, Whistler's paintings of the bridge in particular were seminal in establishing impressionism as a mainstream form), I'm reluctant to go down the "…in popular culture" route; one can generally find some poem by someone about virtually any 18th-19th century landmark. – iridescent 16:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Coincidence, or conspiracy? You decide. Ling.Nut (talk) 13:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Well written, comprehensive, good images, well referenced. JN466 13:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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