Bridge of Sighs (Oxford) Bridge of Sighs (Oxford) Hertford Bridge, often called "the Bridge of Sighs", is a skyway joining two parts of Hertford College over New College Lane in Oxford, England. Its distinctive design makes it a city landmark. The bridge is often referred to as the Bridge of Sighs because of its supposed similarity to the famous Bridge of Sighs in Venice. However, Hertford Bridge was never intended to be a replica of the Venetian bridge, and instead it bears a closer resemblance to the Rialto Bridge in the same city. There is a false legend saying that many decades ago, a
Waterloo Bridge on the bridge. In 1844 Thomas Hood wrote the poem "The Bridge of Sighs", which concerns the suicide of a prostitute there. Paintings of the bridge were created by the French Impressionist Claude Monet and the English Romantic John Constable. The bridge was nationalised in 1878 and placed under the control of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which removed the toll from it. Michael Faraday tried in 1832 to measure the potential difference between each side of the bridge caused by the ebbing salt water flowing through the Earth's magnetic field. See magnetohydrodynamics. From 1884 serious problems were found in