Brian Cookson
Author
After obtaining a BA Honours Degree at Oxford University, I spent most of my working life as an IBM Consultant. Now a London Tourist Board Blue Badge Guide and writer and lecturer on London and the River Thames, I specialise in London walking tours.
Mainstream have published two of my books on London themes, London Waterside Walks and Crossing the River - The History of London's Thames River Bridges from Richmond to the Tower.
Latest Release
Crossing the River by Brian Cookson
Some of the most beautiful views of London are those from the many bridges which span the River Thames. Millions of people cross over the Thames every day, but most are too concerned with reaching their destination to notice the structures they use, let alone consider their history or the risks taken in building them.
Triumphs of architecture and engineering, London's bridges have inspired artists as diverse as Dickens and Monet. From the elegant Richmond Bridge to the Gothic, quintessentially British, Tower Bridge they have formed the backdrop to battles, rebellions, pageantry and mysteries for two millennia. Crossing the River tells these stories, including the assassination of a dissident with a poisoned umbrella on Waterloo Bridge; Blackfriars Bridge and the apparent suicide of 'God's banker', an Italian financier with links to the Vatican, the Masons and the Mafia; and the Marchioness tragedy and its controversial aftermath.
Featuring illustrations and photographs old and new, this book increases the reader's knowledge and appreciation of the bridges and the people who built them, and thereby enhances the pleasure of seeing them, whether at leisure or stuck in a traffic jam.
