Xmas every night on York's Millennium Bridge

The festive lights get switched on this Thursday evening in York - but it's Christmas every night on the splendid Millennium Bridge, over the Ouse on the southern edge of the city centre.

The peds'n'bikes-only bridge is lit up at dusk in gradually shifting colours.

It's quite a romantic place to stop and enjoy, say, a knock-down trifle from the supermarket over the road.


It's constantly busy with cyclists (and, being York, you only have to wait a few minutes for a tandem) and dog walkers.

When a white dog passes, the lights make them glow trippily in green, pink, turquoise and lemon. Our Sainsburys trifle looked pretty psychedelic, too.

Thames Crossings 22: Millennium Bridge

Downriver from Blackfriars Bridge is Millennium Bridge, aka the Wobbly Bridge.

It opened in June 2000 but turned out to be more of a cakewalk than a crossing: at the south end it was wobbling at 0.8Hz and in the middle at 1Hz. (Those with perfect pitch will recognise these as A flat and C, eight octaves below middle C).

The idea had been to provide a stylish link between Tate Modern and St Paul's Cathedral, not a fairground ride, so it was closed two days later. Spoilsport engineering work added dampers, and it reopened in 2002 vibration-free.


It's a pedestrian bridge, but fine for wheeling your bike across. (Though you can't easily lean your bike against the recessed strands of steel at the side.) And it was designed with views in mind: not only upriver and downriver, but along the bridge itself, especially as you walk up to it from Tate Modern, where it frames the dome of St Paul's very satisfyingly.

The best views of the bridge itself are from the bar up on level 7 of Tate Modern. Coming up here for a glass of wine at dusk ought to be in those books with titles like '1000 Things To Do Before You Start Forgetting Which You've Done'.


The north side takes you straight up to St Paul's. But if you want to go down to water level to walk along the riverside path, there's an inclinator: a curious little machine that's half lift, half cable car, and half shower cubicle, which will scoot you and bike up and down to avoid the steps.

From here on the north side it's a bit winding: down the inclinator, along the walkway, left up Broken Wharf, along High Timber St, right down Queenhithe to the walkway, through Fruiterer's Passage underneath Southwark Bridge, and left up Bell Wharf Lane to get back to road level. On the south side it's along the riverfront, right just after the Globe and back on yourself to street level. Either way, Southwark Bridge is under quarter of a mile away.

Hitching a lift by the wobbly bridge

In the current situation, it's nice to report something that should give you a bit of a lift.

In fact, it is a lift (right). It's just next to the wobbly bridge, which splendidly links St Paul's Cathedral and Tate Modern. It doesn't wobble any more of course, but 'Millennium Bridge' is a boring name.

Even more boringly, you're not supposed to cycle across the bridge. But it's an easy and pleasant push across, and you can bike your way along the south bank for one of the world's greatest cityscape cycling views.

And if you want to get down with your bike on the north bank to the riverside footpath, you don't have to schlepp it down the steps. This 'Inclinator', as it calls itself - imagine a greenhouse doing an impression of the Lynton Cliff Railway - will shuttle you and your bike between levels.

There's no good reason for using it. Except that it's there, and you can, which is good enough.