The Edwardian world of Hannah Griggs has gone online this week about the real-life story of the first woman ever to get a job on Tower Bridge more than 100 years ago.
Hannah was a passionate gardener, but actually hired as a cook to the Bridge Master and his family.
Her story came to life by chance when one of the present-day staff overheard Susan Belcher telling friends on a visit to Tower Bridge how her grandmother became the Cook-in-Service back in 1911.
The exhibition manager who was planning for the 125th anniversary of London’s iconic landmark immediately got in touch with Susan.
Hannah’s story was used as part of his Making the Bridge Sing exhibition which is now online for the first time, having been staged in the old Victorian engine rooms from January to March.
It includes a film by sound artist Di Mainstone that imagines Hannah experimenting by “playing” different parts of the bridge with invented instruments to help her plants flourish, as she goes about her work as the cook.
“It was inspiring to meet Hannah’s descendants,” Di said when her exhibition first opened. “I was determined to bring her personal history to life in such a wonderful location.”
Her film has Hannah as maestro plucking the suspension cables or “strings” of the bridge like a giant instrument.
But it’s more about climate change, using the bascule counterweight mechanism that lifts the bridge span “as a metaphor for harmony and our delicate ecosystem”, turning the Victorian structure into a giant musical instrument and inviting anyone to “play” it.
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