Self-Guided Tours
London Bridge
Learn about the early history of the London Bridge and make time to visit during your next trip to Lake Havasu City.
Take a London Bridge virtual tour and watch live streaming video of the bridge and Bridgewater Channel from our Lake Havasu Weather WebCam. When visiting Lake Havasu City, be sure to take the London Bridge Historic Self-Guided Walking Tour to experience the London Bridge in person.
“How did the London Bridge make its way from rainy London to the dust-dry Mojave Desert in Arizona? The story began centuries earlier, over 5,400 miles away in London, England.”
For nearly 2,000 years, a series of bridges has spanned the River Thames in London. The "Old" London Bridge of nursery rhyme fame was a stone bridge built by Peter of Colechurch, an architect and priest, between 1176 and 1209. It replaced various wooden bridges built by the Roman founders of London from AD 50–1176.
Olaf II of Norway, King of Norway from 1015 to 1028, led military campaigns to unite Norway into one kingdom. One of these campaigns was a sea-based attack in 1014 that pulled down one of the wooden bridges. Two other wooden bridges were built and subsequently destroyed during this turbulent time in England's early history.
Due to uneven construction, the bridge required frequent repairs yet survived more than 600 years.
One of the more grisly periods of the bridge's history was at the southern gateway between 1305 and 1660. There it was customary to display the severed heads of traitors, impaled on pikes and dipped in tar to preserve them against the elements.
The head of William Wallace, a Scottish knight and landowner who led the Wars for Scottish Independence, was the first to appear on the gate. Other famous heads on pikes included those of Jack Cade in 1450, Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher in 1535, and Thomas Cromwell in 1540. A German visitor to London in 1598 counted over 30 heads on the bridge. The practice was finally stopped in 1660, following the Restoration of King Charles II.
By the end of the 18th century, the old London Bridge needed to be replaced. It had fallen into severe disrepair and was blocking river traffic. Designed in 1799 by Scottish engineer John Rennie, who died before his design was approved, the "New" London Bridge was dedicated on August 1, 1831.
Due to the weight of the automobile traffic crossing the bridge in the early 20th Century, it began sinking into the River Thames at the rate of an inch (3 cm) every eight years. By 1924, the east side of the bridge was some three to four inches (9-12 cm) lower than the west side.
The London Bridge in Lake Havasu City
In the 1960s, Robert P. McCulloch, Sr. was an inventor and entrepreneur who had great success in the boat motor and chainsaw markets. In need of a body of water to test the motors, McCulloch moved his company from land-locked eastern California to the Lake Havasu area. He purchased a 26-square-mile parcel of raw desert along the lake's eastern shore.
McCulloch wanted to grow his tiny company town into a thriving city and tourist destination. His friend Cornelius Vanderbilt “C.V.” Wood, who was known for designing Disneyland, planned and developed the new community. A vigorous marketing campaign in the freezing Midwest drove sales of residential lots in the sunny desert.
The purchase included ornate lampposts made from the melted-down cannons captured by the British from Napoleon's army, after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Overlooking the Bridgewater Channel, these lampposts line the London Bridge today.
After it was dismantled, each of its 10,276 exterior granite blocks from the original bridge was shipped to Lake Havasu City. Each block was numbered before the bridge was disassembled.
The blocks were shipped overseas through the Panama Canal to California and trucked from Long Beach to Arizona. The shipping and assembly of the bridge, and dredging of a man-made channel underneath, cost $7 million.
The inside of the bridge is hollow because it was rebuilt with a steel framework faced with granite. This reduced its weight from 130,000 tons to 30,000 tons, while strengthening the structure in order to accommodate auto traffic. After three years of reconstruction, Lake Havasu City rededicated the bridge in an extravagant ceremony held on October 10, 1971.
To welcome visitors and support the sale of residential lots in the new city, McCulloch Properties also built the English Village: an open-air mall to the north of the London Bridge.
Spanning 930 feet (280 meters) across the Bridgewater Channel, the bridge connects pedestrians, motorists and cyclists on "mainland" Lake Havasu City to an island with shops, restaurants, hotels, resorts and housing. On this island in 1964, McCulloch built the Nautical Inn, now The Nautical Beachfront Resort: Arizona's only beachfront resort.
The Largest Antique Ever Sold by Mary Martin is an engaging and visually rich article about the London Bridge's history and traditions. Many thanks to Brennen Matthews of ROUTE Magazine for making it available as a PDF document to download.
The London Bridge Today
On October 20, 2018, Lake Havasu City celebrated the 50th anniversary of the purchase of the London Bridge. The celebration included the 690th Right Honourable Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Charles Bowman, and a proclamation by Arizona Governor Douglas A. Ducey.
The celebration closed with a traditional sheep crossing over the London Bridge, with sheep from the La Paz County/Colorado River Indian Tribe 4H Youth Program.
In October 2021, a month-long celebration commemorated the 50th anniversary of the London Bridge's dedication in Lake Havasu City. Over 300 media outlets worldwide featured the kick-off event for the celebration.
McCulloch's hunch paid off in spades. Today the historic and, some say, haunted bridge is the most-visited built attraction in Arizona. Attracting visitors from around the world, its many fans include photographers, filmmakers, travel writers, history buffs, boaters, kayakers, paddle boarders and music lovers at live concerts under its acoustical arches. Lake Havasu City is currently home to over 57,000 residents and a major driving force for tourism and industry in the region.
Did you know? The London Bridge is home to hundreds of bats and thousands of swallows. Learn more fun facts on our London Bridge Fun Facts page.
