Tower Bridge as its northern landfall is in Tower Hamlets. The bridge consists of two bridge towers tied together at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, designed to withstand the horizontal tension forces exerted by the suspended sections of the bridge on the landward sides of the towers. The vertical components of the forces in the suspended sections and the vertical reactions of the two walkways are carried by the two robust towers. The bascule pivots and operating machinery are housed in the base of each tower. Before its restoration in the 2010s, the bridge's colour scheme dated from 1977, when
London Bridge Is Falling Down of Norway in 1014 (or 1009). The nineteenth-century translation of the Norse saga the "Heimskringla", published by Samuel Laing in 1844, included a verse by Óttarr svarti, that looks very similar to the nursery rhyme: <poem>London Bridge is broken down. — Gold is won, and bright renown. Hild is shouting in the din! Odin makes our Olaf win!</poem> However, modern translations make it clear that Laing was using the nursery rhyme as a model for his very free translation, and the reference to London Bridge does not appear at the start of the verse and it is unlikely that this