LAMBETH BRIDGE  is to be a light iron suspension bridge, from Horseferry Road, Westminster, to a point near Lambeth Church; opening up an important thoroughfare with the western district of the metropolis, and affording a fine view of that noble brick-built pile, the Bishop's Palace. The new bridge is 32 ft. wide, which allows 20 ft. for the road, and 6 ft. on each side for footways. It cost about 50,000l., and was opened in 1862. The toll for foot passengers is ½d.

Cruchley's London in 1865 : A Handbook for Strangers, 1865

LAMBETH SUSPENSION BRIDGE, connects Horseferry-road, Westminster, with Church-street, Lambeth, P. W. Barlow, engineer; and though constructed for both carriage and foot traffic, it cost, including the approaches, only 40,000l. Its entire length is 1040 feet; it has three spans of 280 feet each, of wire cable, bearing wrought iron platforms, suspended from piers, each of two iron cylinders, 12 feet in diameter sunk into the London clay, 18 feet below the bed of the river, filled with concrete and brickwork; the novelty consists in placing under the bridge, on each side, a longitudinal tubular iron girder, a cross girder between, so as to reduce to the minimum the upward, downward, and lateral movement.

John Timbs, Curiosities of London, 1867

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Lambeth Bridge is perhaps, on the whole, the ugliest ever built. It was also—when it was built, at all events—supposed to be the cheapest. It is a suspension bridge of five spans, and one great economy in its construction consists in the use of wire cables in place of the usual chains. It connects Westminster with Lambeth, where it lands close by the Archbishop’s Palace.

Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879

see also A.R.Bennett in London and Londoners - click here