In this BBC documentary, he tells us stories of bronze-age relics, of why London Bridge was falling down, of midnight corpses floating under Waterloo Bridge, and he also tells us about the bridge builders themselves.
In this short four-minute excerpt Dan Cruickshank explores the history of the Westminster Bridge
It was only in 1736, after centuries of argument, that Parliament agreed to a bridge at Westminster. Under the act, the watermen got £25,000 compensation, the equivalent today of more than £2 million. When Westminster Bridge officially opened in 1750, London was transformed once again. The Thames had been a kind of moat protecting the city. Now, all that changed. The commercial and political powers north of the river, once represented mainly by the church, now took charge across the river.
And so started the dramatic transformation of the south bank of the Thames. Traditionally, the south bank had been a place independent of the city on the north bank, a place free of the city's controls and statutes. It was, I suppose, a land of liberty and libertines. There were theatres, bear-baiting pits, brothels, market gardens and pleasure grounds. But now, it became something quite different. It became, in a way, a province of the north bank of the Thames, largely because, perhaps ironically, one of the major landowners and developers of the south side of the Thames was the City Corporation.
The City and the Bridge House Estate owned land across the river which jumped in value once Westminster and then Blackfriars Bridge were built. And the obelisk they erected here, planned to be the focus of a grand new urban district, marks the centre of their holdings.
As a result of the new bridges, London north and south of the river had become one great city. The new crossings were a distinctive part of what was to be the zenith of Georgian London. But like the Roman and mediaeval bridges before them, they too are now ghosts, swept away by development. Flying 14 miles upstream, however, we can experience their effect. Richmond bridge, a classic 18th-century masonry arched structure, is the only one of London's Georgian bridges to survive.
And it sits in a green riverside landscape, a middle-class suburb surrounded by aristocratic houses and parks. It allows us a glimpse of what Westminster might have been like when the bridge was new and the idea of London as a river city was at its height.
Early one morning, in September 1802, William Wordsworth passed across Westminster Bridge on the top of a coach. He was inspired by what he saw, it was a vision. He wrote a poem. And the poem, in a most charming way, is here, in this bronze plate upon Westminster Bridge.
"Earth has not anything To show more fair /Dull would he be of soul Who could pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty / This city now doth Like a garment wear / The beauty of the morning... / Ships, towers, domes Theatres, and temples lie / Open unto the fields And to the sky."
Standing here, I can see the city as Wordsworth saw it. It haunts my imagination, Georgian London, one of the greatest urban creations ever achieved by mankind, I argue. And to think that, from here, that great city unfolded itself to Wordsworth in a way he could not resist.
